A Year in the Life of Optimus Prime: Three
by BuckeyeBelle
Summary: While NEST's responsibilities grow and the Autobots figure out how to be at peace, the surviving Decepticons regroup. Diarwen faces the possibility of a life without magic—but not alone.
1. Chapter 1

A Year in the Life of Optimus Prime: Three

By Buckeye Belle and Vivienne Grainger

Part 1

(A.N. Transformers belongs to Hasbro and whoever they have allowed the rights to it, which certainly doesn't include me. No money has been made from this fanfic and no copyright infringement is intended. All I own are my OCs.

This story contains religious and spiritual discussion drawn from various religious paths both real and fictional. Those who wish not to be exposed to religions other than their own should turn back now.

This is the fifth story in The Sidhe Chronicles series. Previous stories are "Swords and Jewels," "The Sidhe Chronicles 2: Dark of the Moon," "A Year in the Life of Optimus Prime: One," and "A Year in the Life of Optimus Prime: Two." This is a separate AU from the "Come on up for the Rising" verse.

"Normal speech"

::Silent speech (Internal radio or through a bond)::

Scene Break: -Sidhe Chronicles-

This story contains a direct transcription of Optimus Prime's call to the Cybertronian people at the end of the 2007 movie. This paragraph, set in bold, is not my work. I do not know who wrote the script.

Thanks to my beta and co-author, Vivienne Grainger. /A.N)

-Sidhe Chronicles-

Incident Report

Beaverton Police Department

Beaverton, Oregon

Narrative

Report Date: 8/8/2011 09:28

Reporting officer: Mendoza, Hernando

Clearance: O Open

On 8/8/2011, at approximately 0920 hours, reporting officer was dispatched to 1408 Silicon Circle, Suite 101, Beaverton, OR 97004, in reference to a complaint of an abandoned property and and unlocked door. While en route, dispatch stated that there was a report of multiple dead bodies at the location.

Upon arrival at the location, reporting officer encountered US Mail Carrier Philip J. Esterbrook outside the west entrance to 1408 Silicon Circle. Esterbrook reported that he had entered the property through the unlocked west entrance and discovered multiple dead bodies inside. He said he then obeyed dispatch orders to exit the structure and await the arrival of officers.

Officer Karen Jones and reporting officer then entered the building through the west entrance, which was unlocked. Both officers immediately recognized the odor of decomposition. Reporting officer cleared the employee break room, as well as an adjoining supply closet. The door to the supply closet was open.

Reporting officer then cleared a large room containing computers and related equipment. There were eight victims in this room, all at or near their desks. After ascertaining that there were no signs of life, reporting officer did not disturb the scene any further.

At this point, Officer Jones reported that the rest of the premises were clear, and that she had discovered two more victims. Beaverton Fire and Rescue arrived on scene and pronounced all victims deceased at 0945 hours.

The scene was then secured with crime tape by Officer Jones.

Lt. Mayfair arrived on scene and notified dispatch to have Homicide respond to the scene.

The scene was turned over to BPD Homicide upon their arrival at 0957 hours.

Witness Interview

Beaverton Police Department

Beaverton, Oregon

Report Date: 8/8/2011 11:20

Interviewer: Detective Lejuan C. Lincoln

Witness: Philip J. Esterbrook

L: Please state your full name, sir.

E: Philip John Esterbrook.

L: What is your occupation?

E: I'm a letter carrier with the U.S. Postal Service.

L: You made a 911 call this morning, is that correct?

E: Yes, sir.

L: Please describe the circumstances of that call.

E: I was delivering mail in the industrial park. Now, last Saturday, I brought the mail there, but the business was closed. I put it in the slot.

L: Is it uncommon for the business to be closed on Saturday?

E: No sir. They usually are closed Saturdays so I didn't think anything of it. Last Saturday, I didn't see anybody.

L: OK, sir, what happened next?

E: When I got there this morning, they still were closed. I noticed that the same cars were in the parking lot—they hadn't been moved.

L: And you noted this as significant why, sir?

E: I did two tours in Iraq. US Marine Corps. Abandoned cars were, ah, possibly IEDs. It isn't something you stop noticing.

L: Understood.

E: The lights were off and the doors were locked. I looked through the mail slot, and the delivery from last Saturday was still there. I knocked and yelled, but nobody answered. Then I went around to the side door. It's a fire door, supposed to be locked from the outside but employees often smoke out there so I've seen it left unlocked on several occasions. It was this morning. I opened the door and yelled again. I could hear computers running—you know, they usually hibernate them when they aren't in there to save electricity. And I could smell something dead in there. That's when I called 911.

L: That was at 9:19, is that correct?

E: I didn't look at my watch, but it was around then. Within five minutes or so.

L: Then what did you do?

E: I got to thinking, somebody could be hurt in there. I went in to see if anybody needed help. I know the dispatcher told me not to, but—I'm sorry, I did it anyway.

L: What did you see, Mr. Esterbrook?

E: I found them in the computer room—eight people, all dead, they'd been that way for at least a day or more. I told the dispatcher, and she ordered me to get back outside and wait for you because there might still be suspects in there. Since there was nothing I could do, I went back outside, called my own dispatcher to let them know what was going on, and waited until the officers got there.

-Sidhe Chronicles-

Lieutenant Colonel William Lennox watched his team line up for inspection. He was pleased with their progress. In the eight weeks since the Battle of Chicago, they had come together very well. He had washed out only four men who could not adapt to working with the bots, and sent them back to their Ranger units. The rest were everything he could have hoped for.

Today, Mearing was bringing in personnel from Sectors Five, Eight, Eleven and Thirteen for cross-training. He wasn't concerned about S13, having worked with them shortly before in Indiana. The rest, he wasn't so sure about. S8 were medical personnel, specializing in epidemiology. Lennox thought Ratchet and Dr. Parker would have more to do with them than he would. But S5 and S11...rather than speculate, he decided to wait until they got here.

Optimus, Ironhide, and Ratchet came out when they got word from the gate that the bus bringing their visitors was on its way.

First off the bus was Mearing, followed by a slender, bespectacled man in a tweed jacket, a tall redhead wearing a brown dress suit, a middle-aged black man in khakis and a plaid shirt, a sixtyish blonde wearing a silk blouse and black slacks that showcased a runner's thinness, an older black man in glasses wearing a suit and tie with a caduceus tie tack, and finally a short, muscular man in black slacks and a blue shirt with the collar open. These people waited while an equally varied group of people also got off the bus. Apparently the first ones off were the sector directors, because the rest of the passengers split up to join them. Some of the groups formed up in credible military fashion, others just got quiet and paid attention when Mearing spoke up.

Mearing said, "Welcome to Mission City Base, the home of NEST and the Autobots. We will be spending one week here, during which you will be learning about the Autobots and their enemies, and our own, the Decepticons. As well, each of the sector directors will conduct a briefing explaining your teams' specialties, with the objective of determining how best to integrate your skills into the greater NEST unit, and how to complement other teams in the completion of their various missions. Unless told otherwise, consider everything that you learn here to be classified. I don't believe I need to tell you who Optimus Prime is. Prime."

"Thank you, Director. I would like to join Director Mearing in welcoming everyone to Mission City. I will keep this brief, as I am sure you have had a long trip. This is Ironhide, my second in command and our weapons specialist, and Ratchet, our chief medical officer." Each bot stepped forward as he was introduced. "You need not be concerned about walking around in our common areas, we maintain proximity sensors and are aware of everyone in our area at all times. But I would like to ask all of you not to dart out or stop suddenly in front of us when we are moving as that could be quite dangerous. Please keep in mind that we cannot stop or change directions as easily as you can. Also, we have three small sparklings, or children, on the base. Undoubtedly they will be as curious about you as you are about them, but I ask you to treat them as you would children of any species. Their caretakers will advise you about specific situations. May I introduce Lieutenant Colonel William Lennox, the commander of NEST and of this base."

Lennox stepped forward. "Thank you, Prime. My second in command, Major Alistair Graham, and the men and women of NEST."

To everybody's surprise, the civilian visitors' reaction to the Autobots and NEST was a loud, spontaneous round of applause, whistles and cheers—and few "oorahs" from veterans in the crowd. One of a pair of twin teenage girls shouted, "Thank you!"

The warm hello broke the ice. Lennox found himself smiling, saw Graham doing the same, and said, "All right! Thank you. Let's get out of the sun, and we'll begin the briefing."

They all moved inside the main building to the commons, where coffee and snacks were available, and rows of folding chairs had been set up. On each chair was an information packet, a legal pad, and a pen.

Many of the civilians had no military experience, and were a little unsure how to behave while on base, but they all knew what to do at a conference. The visitors collected refreshments and found seats. Some of the soldiers had duties, others filed into place with a little more organization and less extraneous chatter than their guests. Those Autobots who were not otherwise busy formed up on their side of the commons.

Lennox made his way to the catwalk and watched while the guests filled out paperwork. Flareup collected the papers and took them to Ops to scan. While Graham went over the agenda for the rest of the day and gave them more general information about the base, Lennox watched the new people to see who paid attention, who looked around to study their surroundings, and who was too fascinated by the bots to absorb anything else. He also looked for anyone who seemed to be overly frightened or creeped out by the Cybertronians—those people would need to be managed carefully while they were on the base.

Mearing came up beside him and rested a hand lightly on the railing, as casual as she tended to get. Lennox asked, "Anything I should know, Director?"

"Not especially," she said. "I didn't notice anything on the trip out here that raised any red flags."

Graham finished his presentation, then said, "Now, I'd like to ask the sector directors to stand up and introduce your teams, and give us a brief description of the type of missions that you usually are assigned. Let's go in order of sector numbers, shall we? Director Treadwell, of Sector 5."

The New Yorker in the blue shirt stood. "I'm Joe Treadwell, this is Isaac Darlington, Randy Pritchart, Larina Baker and Alan Winters." A tall black man, a fellow in a NASCAR cap, a tough-looking blond woman, and a short, thin man in coke-bottle glasses nodded as he introduced them. "I could go into a lot of things, but basically, you've heard of the Scoobies—the ones who follow the short blond around, not the ones with the dog. That's essentially what we get. Only our big bads don't wait till May to cause trouble."

Some of the other humans furrowed their brows in puzzlement; the bots, of course, got the Buffy reference. Sideswipe, who liked the show a lot, grinned.

All of them except Winters looked capable, Lennox thought, but he pegged Winters for research and data analysis, one of the guys who could do more damage than a dozen frontliners. He said, "If it still existed, Sector 7 would be next. It was rolled into what became NEST after Mission City. Our mandate incorporates anything involving the Cybertronians."

The older black man in the suit stood. "I'm James Collins, most folks call me Doc, and this is Dr. Serena Steele. We're epidemiologists, that's the study of diseases and how they spread. This is Dr. Terence Young, formerly the Atlanta medical examiner; next is our chief investigator Alvin Castle; and last but not least, Major Diana Skyler, formerly of the United States Army. S8's job is to stop outbreaks. We work closely with the military and the CDC to accomplish that."

The fellow in what Lennox thought of as the universal nerd uniform—khakis and a plaid shirt—stood next. "I'm Lucius Millhouse, Director of S9. My specialty is automotive engineering. Melissa Stansfield, petrochemical engineering. Mark Emory, geology, and Alison Wilcox, alternative energy engineering. On the end there is Konrad Schuster, master mechanic. I can't _begin_ to tell you how excited we are to be here."

There was a round of laughter from the Autobots, and Bee and Arcee waved at him.

"S9's area of expertise is energy. Since 9/11, our missions have mostly involved investigating threats to our energy infrastructure."

Next, the redhead in the brown suit took her turn. "My name is Olivia Hunt. My second, Jarrell Rhodes, Dana and Diana Ellsworth, Ryan Webster, and Sheree Delano. S11 studies psychic abilities and ways to strengthen them, as well as using our talents to assist other agencies."

Hunt was middle-aged, around fifty. The twins looked to be still in their late teens. Rhodes and Webster, on the other hand, had the confident air of men who could take care of themselves - and others. Delano looked new to all of this.

Finally the man in the tweed suit introduced himself. "I am Quinn Braithwaite, and we are Sector 13. Our field leader and my second in command, Tyler LeGrand, Eric Brown, and Adele Hempstead. Nathan, show yourself, please." The ghost became visible, causing quite a stir. "Nathan Stoughton, formerly of the Continental Army.

"Sector 13's job remains what it has been since the beginning of this nation: to protect ordinary people from the paranormal, and to protect the paranormal from them."

From his vantage point, Lennox observed black looks exchanged between S5 and S13. Glancing at Mearing, he saw that it hadn't slipped past her either.

If that kept up, one unit or the other would have to go. Lennox couldn't have a house divided.

He asked Mearing, "Is he suggesting that S13 has been around since the Revolutionary War?"

"That's what it sounds like," Mearing said. "It looks like there's some history between S5 and S13, as well. I wonder if they haven't been working at cross-purposes. Until we can look into it, let's keep them separated as much as we can."

"Sir."

-Sidhe Chronicles-

After the orientation meeting in the commons broke up, Sector 8 went to Medbay, where they were met by Jolt, the blue apprentice healer whose alt form was a Chevy Volt. He said, "Ratchet's with a patient right now, so I'll show you around the receiving area here. This common area handles intake for both the human and Cybertronian sides of medbay. It also would serve as a triage area in an emergency situation. Sgt. Meadows is the ward clerk."

Meadows stood and gave a short description of her responsibilities, then Jolt handed them over to Dr. Parker for a tour of the human side.

Jolt went through the large bot-sized door into their side, and found Ratchet just finishing Skysong's daily systems check. The healer gave the seekerlet a rust stick and transferred her to Barricade. He assured her guardian, "She's doing fine. Her weight is only a little below average for her height, and considering her lighter frame type, I'm not concerned about that. If we have just a little more self-healing on her wing struts, we may be able to go with some internal bracing instead of the external cage. She'll be a lot more comfortable if we can do that, but the remaining strut will have to be strong enough to withstand the stress at the attachment points. It's not quite there yet."

Barricade looked down at her sitting on his hip, one little servo gripping his waist assembly while the other held her rust stick, which she was happily crunching. His fuel pump revolved in his chest, which it did every time he had a sparkling on his hip. "Thanks, Ratchet," he said, making optic contact with the medic.

"Welcome. See you later, sweetie." (This comment was addressed to Skysong.)

Barricade took her outside, where Sarah Lennox was minding the mechlings along with her own little girl. The three small ones were playing in the sand; the "boys," as Sarah thought of them, had long become accustomed to Skysong's intermittent and sometimes lengthy absences. But they always perked up, as they did now, when she was returned to them, opened their wings and took her under them, and small Annabelle as well. At that age, the only difference they knew between children and sparklings involved what they were and were not allowed to do while playing together.

The most recent addition to the "Do Not" list involved forbidding mechlings to give children piggyback rides any higher above the ground than Sarah Lennox was tall. Barricade had been astounded to find out that Skimmer could get airborne with a forty-five pound girl, but with a jet assist, he had—all the way to the top of Building A, some twenty feet up. Sarah had performed the human equivalent of blowing a gasket, and Cade had been able to do that little thing without compromise. Lennox had whipped out his phone, taken pictures, then had Hide lift him up to get the little hooligans.

That had been an interesting day, from Annabelle's point of view, and she wanted to go flying again. And again, and again. Why couldn't they go up high? Again.

Two days later, the demands for "Fly!" somewhat under control, Cade handed Song over to Sarah, then transformed to his alt form and popped up a child seat for Annabelle. The child played an interspecies version of pat-a-cake with Skysong as they went from med bay to the children's play area, with the idea of showing the kids where it would be.

Jolt turned back to prep the exam berth for the next patient, while Ratchet cleaned and put away the equipment he'd used.

Jolt realized Ratchet was quieter than usual. After nearly a quarter vorn as his apprentice, Jolt could read his craftmaster's moods fairly well. An angry, irritated, or frustrated Ratchet was loud. A worried Ratchet was quiet. But Skysong was their only worrisome patient right now, and she seemed to be improving greatly. "Ratchet, is something wrong?"

"No. Yes. _Maybe._"

"I understand if it's confidential," Jolt said, tossing the rag he had used to wipe down the berth into the hamper.

"No, it isn't a medical matter. It's that pit-be-damned Sidhe. It would simplify things greatly if she decided to stay in Ireland—five thousand miles away!"

"What could she have done now? She's been gone for over a week."

"She'd might as well not be, the way Optimus ties up the phone lines with her!" Ratchet groused. "You'd think they were two younglings."

"I don't think this is really any of our business."

"It's going to be everybody's business if she seduces him into—Primus only knows what."

Jolt had no idea what Ratchet was talking about. "Whatever you think is going on, you know Prime can take care of himself. I think you should stay out of it unless there really is a problem."

"I am staying out of it! But I can't help worrying. Now I've got Chromia yelling at me and Mirage watching me like he thinks I'll explode or something."

"Mirage? What does he have to do with it?"

"Pit if I know."

Jolt shrugged and said, "We don't have anyone else in here except for those doctors from Sector 8. Do you want me to give them the tour?"

"No, go ahead and take your break, get your energon. Ironhide's coming in later to get that ankle assembly looked at—again—and I want you to observe. It's a good example of how self-healing is affected by multiple trauma to a load-bearing joint."

"Yes, Craftmaster."

-Sidhe Chronicles-

Flareup got an energon cube, judging by the color which had been started with a fuel base and which were pure solar energy—she preferred those, had never liked the taste of fossil fuels. She would happily scrub sand out of her transformation seams in trade for being able to enjoy pure, plentiful energon.

Jolt selected a cube of his own. "What's going on?"

"I'm going to be showing Sector 9 around."

"They're the ones who've been stopping the terrorists from bombing the oil fields, right?"

"Yes. They're also very curious about us. But not in a mean way, you know?"

He nodded. "They don't get all huffy when we tell them we aren't allowed to talk about something, the way Galloway did."

"I hope we never see _him_ again," the cycleformer replied. "Outside of through a sight, with certified permission not to miss. What have you been doing?"

"Not much, I took S8 to medbay and introduced them to the humans there, then prepped an exam bay. Exciting stuff," he grinned. But then he looked pensive.

"What's wrong?"

"Nothing, really. It's just that Ratchet used an English word and I'm not exactly sure how he meant to translate it."

"What word was it?"

"'Seduce.'"

Flareup ex-vented, and popped her servo over her mouth to keep from spraying energon. "What was the context? Remember with English, you have to know that."

Jolt sent her a clip of Ratchet's sentence, _"It's going to be everybody's business if she seduces him into—Primus only knows what."_

"Well...to answer your question, it sounds like he thinks some femme is trying to get a mech to interface with her, to make him more likely to do what she wants."

"Oh. Oh! Well, that makes even _less_ sense."

"Who was he talking about?"

"Prime, and Lady Diarwen."

Flareup stifled a giggle and said, "Lady Diarwen is the last person I'd ever describe as a seductress. Don't repeat that around her, she'd be insulted. Don't repeat what I said, either. It isn't exactly an honorable thing to accuse someone of doing, you know, at least among humans."

"So Ratchet has it all wrong?"

"I'm sure he has that part wrong," Flareup replied thoughtfully. She _had_ seen the Prime and the Sidhe together at all hours of the day and night, after all.

She didn't know whether to be miffed that there was news around and Jolt of all people knew before she did, or miffed that it might be true.

Who to ask for the details? Ironhide was the closest, as Prime's 2iC, but people could interface right under his nasal ridge and he wouldn't pay any attention to it.

Then she spotted Sideswipe, and her focus sharpened. He would know what was going on; he always did. She finished her energon, and put the cube in the bin to be cleaned and set out in the sun again. Then she went across the commons to corner Sideswipe.

-Sidhe Chronicles-

The silver swordsmech was looking at pictures of the new Lamborghini line. His alt was a Corvette—upon arrival, there hadn't been a lot of time to choose something. But that model was showing its age, and besides that, he and Sunstreaker always had the same alt. Always. They were both going to get new ones, and they had decided on Lamborghinis, but they were still back and forth between the Murcielago and the Gallardo Superleggera. Whatever they chose had to be suitable for both Sides' close-combat style and Sunstreaker's preference for his guns.

Flareup rolled to a graceful stop beside him, sending her usual greeting glyph. He replied with a quick one-armed hug and a "Hello, beautiful": not, as both of them knew, to be interpreted as anything other than twinspeak, their greatest mutual commonality.

"Ooh, new alt?"

Sideswipe turned the datapad so she could see it better. "One of these two."

"I like that one," she said, pointing to the Superleggera.

"Both of them will be at a car show in Vegas pretty soon. I doubt we'll make up our minds until we have a chance to compare the transscans. I love the looks of that one, though. And, the original has the highest power-to-weight ratio of any Lambo. But the Murcielago is high-end, all the way."

"They're both hot," she said.

"Wouldn't have to be ashamed to transform to either of them," he agreed.

"Still...I wonder if this assembly here will change your transformation sequence too much."

"No way to tell that for sure until I can compare a transscan, but I don't think so."

"So why doesn't each of you scan a different one, see if that one presents any problems, and then you can swap and do the same."

"That would work." He turned off the data pad and subspaced it. "What's going on with you today?"

"Playing hostess to S9 later. Aaand...I heard something very interesting, and I was wondering what you might know about it."

"Someone scooped you on the news?"

"As improbable as that sounds, it is apparently so."

"Well, what is it?"

"Prime, and Diarwen."

"What do you mean, and? And as in '_and_' and?"

"Yes! Have you ever seen him with anyone as much?"

"Well, no. But...'and'? Is that even physically possible?"

"When has that ever stopped anyone?"

"Well, I know, but...'anyone' has never meant a squ—ah, I mean an _organic—_before. I didn't mean to call 'em that, I really didn't, it's just a bad habit I got into before I knew how much they hate it. My point being, they are organic. And they are very small. That being so, what in the name of Primus could they possibly do together?"

"I have no idea, but if I fell in love with one, I'm sure we would think of something," Flareup replied. "That would be the easy part. Can you imagine, never hardlining?"

Sideswipe thought about it. "Actually, no, but that's me, not anybot else."

Flareup nodded. "Personally, I don't care. I mean, Primus knows, if anyone deserves to be happy—!"

"Isn't _that_ the truth!" Sides said.

"There are my visitors! See you, Sides."

"See you, Flare," he smiled, and lost no time whatever in comming his twin. ::Hey, Sunny, what have you heard about Optimus and Diarwen?::

Sunstreaker paused whatever he was doing. A moment later, he sent, ::?:: Then ::?.?.?:: Then, ::Do you mean '_and_' and?::

End Part 1


	2. Chapter 2

Disclaimers in Part 1

That dusk, a soft and gentle desert evening with a hint of crispness to come after the sun was fully down, Jazz was doing what he thought of as "his rounds." He had discovered early on that he was, in his present form, wireless.

Well, not completely, but the presence of iron all around him, such a problem for Diarwen, gave Jazz freedom, if ever he needed it.

He went from home to home, using the electrical system on the base, checking up on everyone and everything, and then used the wire fence to "walk" the perimeter.

And there, not far distant from what would one day become the children's playground, he found Optimus Prime, parked in his alt form, facing a striated rock outcropping hewn into marvelous shapes by the wind…sulking.

One of the things that made Jazz Jazz was the level of his interpersonal skills. He'd seen Optimus sulk before. He also knew that his leader refused to label it as such…"thinking the situation through" was the phrase that tickled Jazz' memory banks.

And his sense of humor.

But the interpersonal skills won out. Optimus' sulk was not black with red fulminations around it like small crawling lightnings, as Sunstreaker's tended to be; it was a brown study, about the same color as the rock he faced.

Bad enough. Therefore Jazz sent a glyph of greeting, and continued on his way.

But Optimus responded, so Jazz sent, ::Heya, boss bot. How ya doin'?::

There was a long, long pause. Then, too heartily, ::Fine, Jazz. And yourself?:

::'M fine, Optimus. What's botherin' you?::

Another very lengthy pause. Then Optimus sent, ::I am unsure what to do about the rumor circulating about Diarwen and me.::

Jazz had sufficient self-control not to laugh (AKA "accidentally let slip an amusement glyph"). Instead, he sent, ::Just let it be, boss bot. Item of the week this week, forgotten next week.::

::I suppose that might be best.::

::Yeah. An' this way, you won't do any damage to Diarwen by arguin' about her with a stubborn old medic.::

Optimus heaved a heavy sigh. ::Exactly what is known about the disagreement between the two of them?::

::Only that Ratchet's not talkin' to Diarwen much, an' pretty much not politely when he does. But boss bot, the medic's been on everybody's bad side at least once, an' Primus knows, we all been on _his_. Don't mean we don't love 'im, just means we take his bein' down on somebody with a grain of salt. 'S only Ratchet, y'know?::

::Yes. I know. I just wish –:: Optimus broke off, and settled himself onto his springs, sighing again. ::I need to think the situation through before I take any action, Jazz.::

That was the closest Jazz had ever come to hearing Optimus admit to sulking. He smiled (configured certain electrical currents in a particular way) and sent, ::Sounds good ta me, boss bot. See you back at the base.::

Optimus remained unmoving, either thinking the situation through or just plain sulking, as Jazz left.

-Sidhe Chronicles-

Diarwen walked down the sloping path from the barn to where the grass met a narrow strip of rocky beach, shaded by a few tall beech trees that had survived the storms of many years. Optimus, only his front tires on the beach, was in his alt form watching the tide come in.

The sun cast his shadow long before him, crossing the beach to darken the water. It was late enough in the evening that the charter boats were returning.

Diarwen realized with a start that she had lived here long enough to recognize many of them on sight, and to know where their captains lived in the little seaside town up the road. It had been a long time since she had cared to know a place so well.

Mission City was where they were stationed. This Maryland shore, where Diarwen had first told Betony Lennox who and what she was, where she had lived until the Battle of Chicago, was home. She was glad there had been time to visit, and even moreso that Optimus had found a reason to be in Washington, which made it easy for him to meet her here.

She came up beside Optimus' driver's door and said, "I love the view from here."

"It's quite peaceful."

"Yes. Optimus, it is good to see you. I am happy to be home. It felt as though I was away much longer than two weeks."

"Yes, it did. I am glad to have you back."

"How have things been in Mission City?"

"Busy. We have people in from the other Sectors for training this week, and Lennox is not happy to have so many civilians underfoot at once. Some of them have never held a gun before. I have my doubts how effective they could be in the field—I think it more likely that their presence would endanger the rest of us since we will have to look out for them."

Diarwen smiled. "We cannot all be in the vanguard. I would presume that their skills are best used within their own Sectors' areas of expertise."

"Yes, but have you ever known non-combatants to stay in the rear where they belong?"

"Not often," she had to admit. "We shall have to teach them Titania's first rule of combat, I should think."

"And what would that be?"

"'Do not get killed.'"

He rumbled a laugh, and shifted, almost imperceptibly. With warmth in his voice, he asked, "And yourself?"

"My trip to Ireland came up empty, but I enjoyed it nonetheless. They are recovering their own language. It is different, there are of course changes over so much time. But still, in a crowd I can almost imagine myself back in my Dublin... I stopped in a pub, and the food and the drink were very like what I remember. I believe that I am going to have to take Wheeljack up on his offer to try to rediscover the process of making mithril. Or to find something else that I can safely use."

"I am sorry it came to nothing."

"I do not regret going." She tilted her head. "And what goes on on base?"

"Diarwen, there is something that I need to tell you, and I hope you will believe me when I say that I think there was no slight to you intended by anyone we know."

"Slight?"

"There is a rumor about the two of us."

"That I care for you as more than a friend? That, dare I hope, the sentiment might be returned?"

"Would that part of it be nothing but rumor?"

"Many a rumor is true, to one extent or another," she replied, with a warm twinkle in her bright eyes. "We have each been alone for many a year, we two. Whose business is that?"

"No one's. But the rumor is more than that."

"Now, I have always thought I had quite a good imagination, but I find myself at a loss here. Exactly what is it that these rumors suggest that we've done together? If it's physically possible, I might try anything at least once!"

Optimus laughed. "Unfortunately, I don't think the rumor-mongers thought that out very well. And my imagination seems to be no better than yours in this. Our two species have such different needs."

"A pity."

"Indeed."

"Even if such a thing were true, there would be no dishonor on my part. I have been widowed for hundreds of years. I have no attachments to anyone. And...you have had no romantic ties to anyone since...Ariel...?"

"No," he said quietly. He had told Diarwen about his intended's death in a campus protest gone wrong, vorns ago in Iacon at the dawn of the war. "Under the circumstances, I never expected to grow close to anyone again."

"Neither did I," Diarwen replied, fully understanding the situation of a wartime leader from her years as one of Queen Titania's knights, as well as the difficulty of moving on from widowhood. For many long years, she had not thought moving on was something that she would ever choose to do, for all that turning herself into a living memorial was not what her late husband would have asked of her.

"Diarwen, what we do have, we will have for a long while to come, Primus willing. Berthmates we could find, if we wished."

She sat on his lower step and laid her cheek against the warm, living metal of his door. "True. Perhaps we should simply ignore the rumors. People will speculate as they wish. Paying attention to it only encourages it. I am not angry that such rumors exist."

"Agreed." He watched the flowing tide for a while. "I do love you, Diarwen."

"And I you."

The fishing boats were borne home on the evening tide, and Diarwen knew how they felt when they made harbor.

-Sidhe Chronicles-

When the base's security cameras picked up movement in Wheeljack's lab, Jazz paid it only scant attention, until he realized the movement was around the table where his new protoform was being assembled, along with Skysong's next flyer, and three undifferentiated protoforms that they were going to have on hand for emergencies. A bot's spark and processor _could_ be kept alive in a medical long-term stasis unit if a protoform was unavailable, but now that they had the ability to build protoforms they might hope that would not be necessary.

Ratchet had consulted with Jazz upon first starting the build, to be sure the saboteur got exactly the frame he wanted, but since then there hadn't been too much to see. The medic and the chief engineer, with the assistance of everyone on the base with the necessary skills, humans and bots alike, had been constructing various parts and sub-assemblies, procedures that were not very interesting to watch.

But today, Wheeljack was opening a crate that had come in from Nellis, where the Decepticon vehicles captured after Chicago were being studied. It contained cybermetal that would be recycled as his new protoform's chassis and armor.

Now, it finally became real to him that he would actually have a frame soon.

One of his data-mining subroutines pinged for attention. He brought it forward to see what it had found.

Along with everyone else, he had been horrified when he'd seen news reports of ten people killed at a Portland-area software company. But workplace violence was not, sadly, uncommon. Like everyone else, when he heard there had been no gunshot or stab wounds, he supposed some sick person with an ax to grind had put something in the break room coffee.

Now, however, something else entirely had cropped up on an FBI computer. Jazz looked through the file, then put in a call to Charlotte Mearing.

"Director, when ya get some time, Ah have some information for ya."

"Thank you, Jazz, I'll be right there."

A few minutes later, the human-sized door opened to admit her. He rezzed his holoform and nodded. "'Mornin', Director."

Mearing was wearing BDUs instead of her usual tailored suit, because she was going out to observe a training exercise planned for later that day. She looked younger, somehow, in the military uniform than she did in office clothing. "Good morning, Jazz. What have you got?"

"Ah found out where the S2 director was, up until a week ago Friday that is."

"What do you mean?"

"James Smith was the owner of Premium Software, in Beaverton, Oregon," Jazz explained.

"Wasn't that where the massacre happened? Was he one of the victims?"

"No, but he's still unaccounted for. When the police searched the building, they found some papers partially burned in a wastebasket, and one of 'em had Smith's name on it. When the BOLO on him hit the system, the FBI picked up on it because, as S2 director, he's on someone's watch list. I don't know whose."

"Good luck finding out, that's above my pay grade. But there's a 'they' who keep a watch on all of us above a certain level. You do realize that we're microchipped?"

"Kinda hard not to—every time you walk by an RFID sensor, it pings. You were the only one on base who had one, until these new people came in."

"It's as much for our protection as to keep track of us. It may make it easier to find him."

"Assuming he wants t' be found. Wouldn't be hard to remove one of those chips, would it?"

"No, not at all. They're just under the skin and about twice as long as a grain of rice. It would be simple to find and remove one," Mearing replied.

"That ain't all. FBI records tie this Smith to a man named Wilburn. They worked together on a project under DARPA supervision having something to do with Direct Neural Interface technology—not _that_ kinda interface!" Jazz laughed at the expression on her face. "The deal is, they're tryin' to come up with a way for humans to connect to a computer, so y'all can shadow the net like we do."

"That sounds like cyberpunk fiction. Did they have any success?"

"This particular project? No more'n Chip's had with his wheelchair. But that was about five years ago. They've had time to improve it."

"True. Does it look like this project had anything to do with what happened at Premium?"

"It almost has to. Wilburn's wife reported him missing since sometime on Friday as well. Locals are treating it as a missing persons case, but they don't know about th' DARPA connection to Smith."

"Bring Optimus in on this and see what he thinks. We need to send a team up there, but it's his call on whether that team should include mecha. So far, it sounds like a Sectors issue."

Jazz said, "Yeah, Sufri was a Sectors issue, too."

"Sufri was a damn WMD. Let me know what else you find."

"Sure thing. Careful out at the proving grounds. Some of those people need a babysitter to keep 'em from shootin' their toes off."

"They're learning," Mearing grinned. She had it on good authority that Lennox had threatened anyone who didn't qualify by the end of the week with remedial shooting lessons with Ironhide. Due diligence had thereafter spread like wildfire.

Jazz checked out a few more leads before disturbing Optimus. ::Boss, we got a situation that the Director wanted me t'run by you.::

::What is it, Jazz?::

The saboteur explained. ::She wants to send some humans up there to check it out, wanted to know if you think a bot ought to go along with them.::

Optimus thought about it. ::Send Mirage,:: he decided.

-Sidhe Chronicles-

Maggie Madsen packed a bag. She had not expected to be sent into the field, not to investigate a mass murder. But detectives weren't going to find out what had been going on in that laboratory. For that, they needed IT professionals, and she knew without conceit that she and her partner, Glen Whitman, were two of the best.

On first glance, they had nothing in common. Maggie was Australian, blonde and tanned, and enjoyed fashionable clothing. Glen was African-American, big and heavy-set and an obsessive snacker. She'd taught him to dance, and regularly badgered him to take her out dancing; the exercise helped, but he'd never be thin.

In most other ways, they were from opposite ends of the spectrum (as well as the earth). Maggie was outgoing, Glen was quiet. But when they worked on a programming project, the synergy was magic. They'd been together professionally since the Battle of Mission City, personally since a short while later.

Glen strapped his laptop into its case and stuffed the pockets with cables and peripherals. "Got everything, Maggie? Mirage is waiting outside."

"I think so. If I forgot anything, I'll pick it up when I get there."

Glen picked up her suitcase, leaving her with only the shoulder bag that served her as both computer case and purse.

Mirage was in his alt form, a red Ferrari 458 Italia. He opened his doors for them, subspaced their bags, and a few moments later they were on the highway headed north.

-Sidhe Chronicles-

Beaverton, Oregon's Police Headquarters was tucked into a large brick building on a side street, just off the main drag: Tualatin Valley Highway, headed west to Hillsboro, the county seat. While the building itself lacked any charm, its setting was institutional-pretty, with substantial trees and grass interspersed along the brick and asphalt.

Their contacts were meeting them at a deli handily just across the lot from the PD.

Mirage parked. "What do you wish to take inside with you?"

He had only to retrieve Glen's computer case from his subspace, as Maggie had kept her purse with her. Glen said, "If we discuss anything important, we'll move it somewhere you can be there too. This is just rude."

Mirage said, "Yours is a NEST cellphone, no? I could use that as a secure point-of-presence."

Glen still felt a little like their friend was being sent to the back of the bus, but there probably wasn't a conference facility in Beaverton where humans and Cybertronians could have a meeting and everyone would be comfortable. It was either gather around in the parking lot, or set up some sort of telepresence for the bot inside a human structure. If Mirage was willing to roll with it, he would too.

To his surprise, though, the two Beaverton officers stood when they came in. The older of the two said, "Welcome to Beaverton. I'm Detective Grant Edmiston, and this is my partner, Detective Marcella Deem, BPD Homicide." Edmiston was in his fifties, short and stocky with blond hair that was fading to gray. He wore a suit and tie, nothing fancy but it fit him well. Deem was perhaps twenty years younger, her dark curly hair cropped clear of her collar. She wore a pair of black slacks and a windbreaker against the morning mist.

Maggie held out her hand for Edmiston to shake. "Thank you. I'm Maggie Madsen, this is my partner Glen Whitman, we're with NEST Information Services. That's our other partner, Mirage, outside."

"We've got some snacks here, and go ahead and order whatever you like on the department's tab. We set up in the department garage; sorry for the noise and the grease but it's the best we could do on short notice."

"I'm sure it will be fine," Maggie smiled.

Glen asked her, "What do you want from the counter, Mags?"

"Just a tall skinny latte, or whatever they call it here. I don't want anything from the deli."

Glen came back with her regular-sized cup, as well as a huge one and an over-stuffed foot-long deli sandwich. They went outside, added Mirage to the entourage, and drove the short distance to the Department's garage.

Office dividers partitioned off a generous corner of the garage, and folding tables had been moved in to make a work area. A large whiteboard held pictures of the ten victims, as well as Smith and Wilburn. Information about them was written below in various shades of dry-erase marker.

Two other men in suits were already there, one on a phone, the other filling out a report. They ended their current tasks and stood as the five of them approached.

Mirage had room to transform. Once the humans were at a safe distance he did so, sitting on the floor near the tables.

Deem moved a couple of folding chairs out of his way, while Edmiston introduced the two FBI agents, Kurt Karpinsky and Allan Kinsler. Glen introduced Mirage, Maggie and himself.

They gathered around the table. Karpinsky said, "Allan and I are here to help you out with your investigation any way we can, but our official interest is in locating Smith. He's considered a security risk, whether as a kidnap victim or as a person of interest in the case."

Edmiston said, "We're a small department here, and Beaverton has a low crime rate. While we're proud of that, I have to say this kind of thing, mass murder, isn't something we see every day. So I'd rather put any jurisdiction questions aside as much as we can, and concentrate on solving the case. I truly do appreciate your assistance, agents, and the three of you as well."

Glen said, "Well, Mirage here is a trained investigator, so he'll be more help to you on that end of things than Maggie and I can be. We're here about Smith as well, and we're also interested in exactly what they were doing in that lab. If it had anything to do with why the people were killed, we'll do everything we can to get to the bottom of that for you."

"Thanks. People who know computers are going to come in handy on this one."

"Can you bring us up to speed on what's been discovered so far?"

"We're still waiting for the ME and CSI reports. Victimology is a little further along, but outside of work we haven't found any other factor linking all of the victims. There's no indication of any family issues that might indicate a domestic dispute was at the root of all this. No one has been fired or otherwise left the company lately."

Glen asked, "What about someone who was still there, but having trouble at work? Has anyone been reprimanded frequently or anything like that?"

"Several hard drives were wiped and drilled. We think the employee records were on those."

Glen and Maggie looked at each other. "Our killer was someone who knew 'best practices' when disposing of a computer containing confidential information. Most people would just 'format c' and leave it at that," Glen said. "At best, they might know to overwrite the drive several times."

Edmiston asked, "Mirage, might your people be capable of recovering data from those damaged drives?"

"Some of it, possibly. It depends on how thoroughly they were destroyed. If you are comfortable sending them with me, we can maintain a documented chain of control while we make the attempt."

"Yeah, would you, please? I know what our folk can do, and it's a lot, but this is a little beyond them."

Mirage asked, "How exactly were these people killed? Were they indeed poisoned? I have heard speculation to that effect."

Deem said, "We're still waiting on the report, but the ME says preliminary tox screens were negative."

"What about this Wilburn? Are there any other connections besides his DARPA work with Smith?" Maggie asked.

"None we've found yet. He's an associate professor on Pill Hill" – he looked at the uncomprehending faces, and amended that - "at Oregon Health Sciences University, and none of the others worked there. Portland PD caught his missing persons case, and since they didn't know of his connection with Smith, a missing-adult case with no signs of foul play wasn't the highest priority. We didn't know anything about him until the agents here started asking questions about him. We don't even know for sure yet that he's involved in this—but it would be a hell of a big coincidence if he wasn't, since he and Smith went missing at the same time."

"When was the last time anyone saw him?"

"He taught a class Friday morning," Agent Kinsler replied.

A uniformed female officer tapped on the edge of the office divider. "Sir, here are the LUDS that you requested."

"Thanks, Dowling," Edmiston replied.

Maggie asked, "What are LUDS?"

Edmiston parceled out the sheaf of papers. "Local usage details—it's a record of calls to and from a particular number. We have the company switchboard and the victims' cell phone records." He paused, then looked at Maggie and Glen. "We won't know what we're looking for until we find it. A pattern of calls could indicate that someone was being harassed, for instance, or if the same number turns up on multiple people's phones, that will raise a red flag."

It reminded Maggie very much of poring through millions of lines of code, without knowing the nature of the error she was looking for until she found it. She extracted a pair of reading glasses from her purse and went to work.

For Glen's part, he stifled a smile and forced himself to concentrate on the phone records. He had never told Maggie how hot he thought her glasses were, he was afraid she'd think it was silly. It was kind of like the Wonder Woman syndrome in reverse. Glasses tended to get associated with smarts, and to him, smart was sexy as hell.

They rarely broke—the no bedroom talk in the office, no office talk in the bedroom rule. It had kept their working and personal relationships strong after practically being joined at the hip 24/7 for the last four years.

For the most part, they worked quietly. Mirage quickly scanned all the LUDS into a database, and determined that there were no common callers on every phone, aside from lunchtime calls to a couple of restaurants which delivered to the industrial park. There was, however, a long list of numbers common to several of the phones.

Maggie suggested, "Mirage, can you lower the importance of numbers that it would make sense for them to call? Computer supply companies, for example. That should filter the more likely prospects to the top."

"What of the taxicab company?" Mirage asked. "There are many calls for cabs."

Deem said, "I'll check. Unless they send the same cabbie out there every time, probably not. But the drivers might have noticed something."

Maggie had thought homicide investigations were rather more exciting than this, judging from the television shows that she had seen. She was just as glad that shootouts and mad chases were not on the agenda.

She smiled at herself, then thought that the day was still young, and she might get lucky yet.

The next break came late that afternoon. A sanitation worker had turned in a plastic bag containing Smith and Wilburn's phones and IDs. That almost certainly put the two in the same place at the same time, confirming that they were working on one case rather than two, but there was still no way to know whether they were suspects or kidnap victims.

"Still, a BOLO has gone out on them," Deem said. Mirage quirked an orbital ridge, and she added, "A 'Be on the Lookout for' advisory. It's been sent throughout Oregon, Washington, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, and California."

End Part 2


	3. Chapter 3

Disclaimers in Part 1

"What? Why aren't you coming?"

Mikaela smiled at Jen Wright, with whom she was having some Tex-Mex.

College Station, Texas, was not a large city – mostly a town-and-gown place. Jen and Mikaela, both seniors at Texas A&M's engineering school, were gownies, not townies

The two women lived off-campus, sharing a house with six other Engineering students, four guys, two more women. After graduation, the housemates would paint the town a vivid shade of carmine before departing to, as Jen put it, "pretend to be grownups." (Or _a_ town, anyway; College Station already had a dispiriting number of coats of paint. Currently, debate was tilting toward Austin for the site of this art project.)

"My dad's in Nevada. He just got out of prison, can't travel out of state. And I don't have any other relatives I'd ask. I thought I'd just skip the grad ceremony. Get right to the fun part."

"Kaela, no! You've gotta do it! We want pictures, and you've got to be in them!"

Mikaela smiled at her, and had a mouthful of her Hashbrowns from Hell. Jen followed suit, and so there was no further conversation until the potatoes had been washed down with milk, which put the Tex-Mex fire out.

"I'll miss this," Mikaela said, looking around at the dive eatery. "Good Eats for Not Much" was its name, hand-painted on the door with dribbly enamel.

"This place? Places like this are a dime a dozen, Kaela. And you have a job waiting. Start eating at better places."

"Even if I do, it won't be with you and Mark and Mary and Tabs and the teenagers," Mikaela said. "And that makes all the difference."

"But you'll come to graduation? Please! You have to!"

"Okay, okay. I'll order the cap and gown tomorrow."

"Good!" Jen jumped up and hugged Mikaela, right there in front of Tex _and_ Mex, which they had long ago named the two sweaty fry cooks who ran the place.

"So what's the plan afterward?" Mikaela said, forking into a breakfast tamale.

"Austin first, then Houston for the Order induction. A lot of us are flying out of Houston afterward."

"Sounds good to me," said Mikaela, whose car would take her from Houston to Nevada, the place she was prepared to call "home." And she'd have to drive it. That was the sucky part.

-Sidhe Chronicles-

Mikaela waited in the hallway outside the auditorium with her classmates. The corridor was a river of cadet gray uniforms and black robes, here and there with a sash or cord draped around a soon-to-be-graduate's neck as a symbol of achievement.

The first chords of "Pomp and Circumstance" resounded. The procession was led by a professor emeritus in his full regalia carrying the mace, followed by the long stream of graduates, a few doctoral candidates, and professors.

Mikaela had not attended her high school graduation. In the panic following the Battle of Mission City, it had been decided there was too much of a risk any Decepticons still on the loose might attack the school in an attempt to avenge Megatron—though, of course, the government had told the school they feared an attack by human terrorists. She and Sam had received their diplomas in a private ceremony in the principal's office. Sam's parents had been there. Mikaela didn't remember why her father had blown it off—he'd been out of jail at the time, but he hadn't shown up.

She wasn't prepared for the cheering crowd or the continual flash of cameras. It seemed like every graduate had someone in the crowd—some had several.

The ceremony took a long time, most of it a long-winded, stultifying speech by a former senator who was an alumnus of the school. Mikaela tried not to squirm. Even if the air conditioning had been working, it would have been no match for the triple-digit temperatures outside and the capacity crowd inside. Her black polyester gown did not help. Sweat trickled between her shoulder blades, and her hard folding chair grew less comfortable by the minute.

Eventually, however, the speaker ran out of things to say, and the rest of the ceremony got under way. Finally, the last name was called, the Alma Mater sung for the last time, and the summer 2011 graduating class spilled out into the sun. Mikaela joined her classmates in throwing her mortarboard high into the cloudless blue sky.

-Sidhe Chronicles-

Chip Chase reached over to slap his alarm clock, an hour before anyone else woke up. He reached for the trapeze bar over his head and hauled himself up in the bed, then checked his fasting blood sugar. He was on steroids, which could cause a potential case of Type II diabetes to become active, so once a week he did a finger stick. Since his result was still normal, he zipped up the test kit and dropped his trash in a paper bag taped to his night stand. Then he took a pill that could not be taken with food.

He reached for a small datapad and logged the blood glucose result directly into his medical records with a couple taps on the screen.

Fifteen minutes later his assistant, Jack Binns, arrived. They went through his usual morning routine in a businesslike manner. They ordinarily got him washed, shaved, dressed and in his chair ready to go by the time he was ready to take his "with food" pills and head to the mess for breakfast.

Today, however, Jack inspected Chip's back as he helped his patient shower. "Hey, man, how long were you in your chair after I went home?"

"I don't know, last night was movie night then I had to wait for Kerrie to get finished with a patient to take off my electrode pads. Why?"

"Because you've got a rash where the pads were. Can we adjust the positioning at all?"

"Not really, that's where the nerves are. How bad is it?"

"Not bad, but if you don't let it heal, you'll end up with sores. You're back on hand controls for a day or two, bud."

"Shit," Chip replied.

"At least we caught it before it got bad," Jack said, looking on the bright side.

"Was it the electrical stimulation? The contacts ain't causing actual pressure sores, are they?"

"You'll have to ask the doctor. I've seen this before with TENS unit pads, which are essentially the same thing, right? But I can't diagnose a problem."

"OK, sorry. Do me a favor, ask the Doc if she can take a look. I need to know, it has a big bearing on my project. Civilians don't always have your quality of help available to them. I'd rather design out all the potential problems before this goes gold."

"Will do. Use your datapad?"

"Sure."

Binns set up the appointment, and he and Chip finished the morning ritual, then went to breakfast.

-Sidhe Chronicles-

Optimus and Diarwen had found that the best time to squeeze out a few moments for his lessons was late in the first joor, when the base was quiet and there were unlikely to be competing demands for his time. Today, they were discussing the Wheel of the Year again. He had little trouble finding and memorizing a great deal of information about the quarter and cross-quarter days. "It isn't so much a question of 'when is Mabon,'" he said, having a rather good understanding of the Earth's rotation around her star and what her axial tilt meant for areas not on the equator, "but rather 'what is Mabon.' I understand the reason for harvest festivals, to give thanks for the bounty of nature. But why so many of them?"

A half-empty water bottle rested on a rock beside Diarwen. The Sidhe warrior had done her morning sword dance in the last starlight before dawn, just before he had met her at their usual spot near Buzzard Rock.

She polished her sword blade as she answered. "There are three harvest festivals because the ripening of plants happens that way. First you get the 'soft' fruits and early vegetables at Lammas, along with the first grain harvest. Then the slow-maturing fruits and grains are harvested at Mabon. That gave our ancestors enough information to know what would be available to take them through winter, and to set the maximum time for animals to fatten. Then a last harvest, that of the animals and the second plantings of grain and vegetables, is held at Samhain."

She sat, uninvited but always welcome, next to him, leaning into his fields a bit. "It comes back to our discussion of the modern pagan calendar. In the Celtic system, Lughnasadh is the first fruits celebration, while Samhain marks the end of the harvest season, the turning of the year and the beginning of winter. In the Germanic system, Mabon was the harvest festival. It marks the autumn equinox, a time of balance. The leaves are all turning, and in the temperate regions where these religions originated, that's often spectacularly beautiful. The Oktoberfests – it's spelled with a 'k'," she said, as he got the abstracted look that meant he was surfing the Web "– which are a Christianized survival of Samhain celebrations, will start soon. Modern Pagans combine those systems. They honor the aging gods at this time, the Goddess as She transitions from Mother to Crone, and the God as He prepares for His death and rebirth. That's why many people choose to hold their croning and saging rituals at this time."

"Is that what humans call retirement?"

"Oh, no. It's a transition from one stage of life to another, but in pagan societies it did not imply that the person was no longer of use. In modern society, sadly, that is often the case. In the past, crones, no longer tied to the responsibilities of raising young children, and sages, no longer expected to bear the responsibilities of hunting for the village or fighting on the front lines, became the teachers of the young—indeed, the sole repositories of knowledge and wisdom in pre-literate societies. It's still true that an old, wise, experienced witch is likely to be a more dangerous witch. The elderly were venerated and treasured, especially in a time when so many died young. It was known to be a time of power, not weakness."

"I see."

Diarwen sheathed her sword. "Were there similar transitions in your ways?"

"Not exactly. After we gain our adult frames, we go through several cycles of aging in a lifetime. An adult frame lasts around 30,000 years, with good care, but eventually it wears out and we require a reformat. There were religious rituals surrounding that, as you can imagine: having one's spark and processor removed to a new frame is no minor procedure. Those undergoing it wanted the support and comfort of the clergy. Now, none of us here are near that point—all the survivors are well short of that limit, even Chromia, Ironhide and Ratchet."

She looked up in shock. "_None_ of your race's elders have survived? I had thought that Ironhide, perhaps Ratchet..."

"No. They are the oldest among us, sparked during the last days of the Golden Age," he replied. "But no one now on Earth is truly a carrier of the wisdom of the ancients. When I was a youngling, I knew mecha who were sparked under the Quintessons and fought in that war for independence. But then, my clan was always in the worst of the fighting, and our most experienced warriors put themselves at greatest risk—often to save our lives. I hope that there may be elders among the survivors of the diaspora, and that we might find them one day. With the loss of our great libraries and temples and centers of learning, we find ourselves in the position of your pre-literate peoples: much of our cultural legacy is lost forever, unless we can find those who remember. I think that my people will be happy to share in a festival which honors those who guard what remains of our heritage."

"Now I begin to understand what an enormous responsibility Gaia carries. She bears not only the future lives of your people, but the culture into which they will come."

"Exactly," he said.

His internal chronometer flashed a message on his HUD that it was nearly shift change, when he would be expected in the command center to prepare for a video conference with General Morshower. "I have to get back, Diarwen. Would you like a ride back to camp?"

"I think I'd like to take a walk before it gets too hot. I'll be back in plenty of time to watch the sparklings."

Optimus smiled. "Enjoy your hike, my love."

Her energy field lit up like a sunrise—and now that he understood those frequencies, she did not need to say "I love you too" aloud—though she did, now and every chance she got. They parted reluctantly, Diarwen up into the canyons, Optimus back to base, but the warmth of that exchange stayed with them both.

-Sidhe Chronicles-

Because Mikaela had a car that she kept running perfectly, old though it may be, she had been chosen as driver of their celebratory road trip by default. A couple of days in Austin had left them with hangovers and suitcases full of memories, Mikaela and Jen and their other newly-graduated roommates, Tabitha "Tabs" Duvall and the twins, Mark and Mary Cantrell. They had dropped the twins off at home—they were from Austin, and would be travelling down to Houston with their family for the induction ceremony. Tabs yelled shotgun, so Jen clambered into the back with the suitcases.

They pulled out of the long driveway of the modest Cantrell ranch. It was a four-hour drive from there to Houston, and they passed back through College Station on the way.

Mikaela drove slowly enough to take in all the familiar sights of campus. Neither of her companions complained; they were looking out the windows too. Jen started the reminiscing when they passed the stadium, talking about the football homecoming game last fall, and the memorable house party which had followed. They laughed about the equally memorable cleanup which had followed that.

Kaela said, "Yeah, but we won the trebuchet build!"

Tab laughed. "I knew we were going to, when that guy from California made that remark about our powderpuff team."

Kaela replied, "I knew we were going to when we designed the damn thing."

Jen said, "Yeah, you spent more time in the campus library designing that trebuchet than for any other project the whole time you were here!"

Tab said, "Yeah, that's right, you transferred in two years ago. Oh, God, I forgot you weren't here until junior year!"

"Yeah, I was going to school back east, but I busted up with my boyfriend and I decided to move closer to home. I hoped it would help work things out with my dad if I was close enough to visit him now and then, but...well, you know how that went."

Tab said, "Kaela, when you were just a kid he thought he could babysit you while he was stealing cars! He could have ruined your life if you hadn't got your record expunged. I-I know he's your dad and all, but he's bad news, girlfriend."

Kaela knew that. "Yeah, but, he is my dad. And he's the only blood family I have left."

Tab patted her arm. "I know. I hope he sees what he's got before it's too late."

"It almost is, Tab. He wants me to move in with him when I get home, and it will save me some money, but I'm done with his drinking and shit. If he can't stay on the wagon this time, that's it, I'm through. I have a security clearance to think about now."

She signaled and turned to their house. They loaded the last of Tab's and Jen's things into the car. They weren't taking much but their clothes, leaving most of their furniture and books for their younger roommates, since they had jobs and were staying over the summer. Mikaela had packed what she intended to take, but would be picking those things up on her way back. Jen and Tab were saying their final goodbyes, and there were a lot of tears.

Tab said, "Cheer up! It won't be too long till we'll all start getting married, and we'll all get to be in each other's weddings and everything. Y'know, bachelorette parties and ugly bridesmaid dresses-"

Mikaela wasn't at all sure that any such thing was in her future, but she went along with the laughter.

There was another round of picture taking, then long, tearful hugs. Finally, they got back into the car, much more crowded now, and headed southeast to Houston.

-Sidhe Chronicles-

Diarwen finished her walk at the back entrance of Building B. It was the same size as building C, but the bots had subdivided it along more or less the same plan as building A, where the human-sized apartments were located. A corridor down the center was just large enough for two bots to pass. Eight bot-sized doors opened into this corridor, each an apartment. Diarwen pulled on her gloves before going inside, and knocked on one of the doors. It rattled up to reveal Barricade, and past him, the sparklings. Barricade had them watching Sesame Street, which was just as educational and entertaining for sparklings as for human children.

She plopped down on the floor between Skysong and Starskimmer, as Stormwing was watching TV while hanging upside down from the rafters. Barricade lowered the door behind him as he went out to join Flareup on patrol.

Skysong rustled her wings. "Itchy!" she complained.

Diarwen got a tub of wax and a soft cloth, and polished her to a mirror-like shine while they watched Elmo, Grover, Cookie Monster, and the rest. Skysong began to purr and hum along with the silly song the Muppets were singing. Diarwen encouraged them to use their language upgrades by pretending not to know about Muppets, and asking the sparklings all sorts of questions about them.

Of course, after she finished polishing Skysong, the mechlings had to have their turn, and then it was time for their lunch.

Parker came by to get them for their daily flight. Diarwen walked over to the main hangar and went inside with them, intending to help push the ultralights out onto the runway.

Optimus and Ironhide came up to watch them take off, the mechlings flying rings around the two ultralights. Parker quickly took them out over the desert, well away from the dangers of traffic around the base itself or the surrounding roads.

Ironhide said, "If you don't need me here, Prime, I'm gonna go help the Tractor Crew clear some of those big rocks away from where they want to put the human kids' playground equipment, then I'll be at the housing site."

They hoped to get real Cybertronian living and working quarters built there for everyone, eventually, and use the miserably hot Quonset huts for other things. Ironhide had never been a construction bot like Crossfire and his brothers, but he had been a laborer, and knew his way around a work site.

"That's fine, 'Hide." They watched him transform and speed away. Diarwen asked, "What would you have me do this afternoon?"

"I believe Jazz has a few questions for you."

"Of course."

Optimus offered his servo to give her a ride to spec-ops. They found Chip already there, studying some code with Jazz' holoform looking over his shoulder.

As they arrived, Binns greeted them courteously then ran some paperwork over to med-sci for Chip.

Diarwen looked at the screen, but the mix of Cybertronian glyphs and text boxes which contained something that was (at least arguably) English baffled her. "What are you doing there?"

"We're trying to figure out how Jazz is using the wiring to travel all over the base just fine, but if he cuts across country where there ain't any wiring, well...bad things happen," Chip summarized.

"Many spirits attach to a thing in the physical world to anchor them," she replied. "What that 'thing' might be varies by individual. I once knew a ghost, a money-lender in his previous life, who attached to coins. Jazz, my friend, you have the good sense or good fortune to attach to the wiring, which has the additional benefit of allowing you to draw energy. I do not know how you are doing this, as electricity and mana are not the same thing."

Chip shook his head. "That's gotta be wrong, Diarwen. Unified field theory. Energy is energy, it's just on a different frequency. If mana exists—and you're proof that it does—it's gotta fit on the spectrum somewhere."

"Ach! You alchemist, you!" she grinned, and quoted, "'Magic and science are the same thing, but we do not yet comprehend their intersection.'"

Chip laughed, "Or, as Clarke put it, 'Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.'"

Diarwen had not read any of Arthur C. Clarke's science fiction, and so she smiled and said, "Jazz, may I guess that these 'bad things' can be described as a low-level energy drain?"

"Ya got it in one."

"That is normal. You are not of this plane, my friend, and you must expend energy to keep yourself here. In time, and with practice, it will require less energy. You will not get that practice while attaching yourself to the power grid and soaking up as much energy as you use."

Chip said, "Yeah, man, and copper, you know, it's pretty loosely attached to its outermost electron. It's easy for you to borrow a bit of its power while you're travelin'."

"I also ain't a hazard to anyone who happens to bump into me. Or walk through me. Whatever."

"You are no hazard to anyone who happens to bump into you. Such a casual contact is harmless. Startling, yes, like an unexpected cold blast of air, but essentially harmless. Now for some untrained fool to stand there for hours at a time, that could be quite harmful. But to cause a truly dangerous drain on mere contact? You would have to do that quite deliberately, my friend. And I suggest that you learn how. It is an effective weapon, quite capable of rendering an opponent unconscious."

"I'm more worried about renderin' 'em dead without meanin' to."

"That is more likely to result from a novice with an unfamiliar weapon in hand, than the actions of a trained warrior," she replied.

Jazz was quiet for a moment. "…What do I have to do?"

"When it cools off this evening, we will go out into the desert, and I will show you."

"Now wait a minute, ya got yourself in trouble using too much energy healin' Song, right? So couldn't this be dangerous for ya also?"

"Indeed it could. I also teach the sword, and I know of little more dangerous than a novice swordsman. It is the same thing. You, my friend, have been a master so long that you have forgotten how to be a student."

"Ya could be right, at that," Jazz admitted. "Okay, let's give it a try—but, boss, I'd rather you were there to keep an optic on us."

"Certainly."

Chip's aura showed a profound discomfort, something that he was trying very hard to ignore, but it was serious enough to be a true concern.

"Chip, is something wrong?"

"You can tell that? Cool. It's really nothin', got a rash from my contact pads. Either I had 'em on too long yesterday, or it might be this new conductive gel. You got some kind of herbal stuff to heal it up fast?"

"I do not want my hand slapped for treading on the healers' territory. But it would harm nothing to look."

He pulled up the back of his shirt, revealing a pair of quarter-sized red spots. Diarwen said, "There are no blisters. Honestly I think it would be sufficient to cool it somehow. Letting the air conditioner blow on it may be enough. Stop wriggling and scratching it on the back of your chair, or you _will_ soon have blisters."

Jazz said, "Those are nice little red places, though."

"They tell ya not to use them contact pads too long," Chip said. "That's probably what it was."

-Sidhe Chronicles-

Jen and Kaela met Mark and Mary and their family outside the hall where the induction ceremony was being held. Several other friends of theirs from Texas A&M were there, along with recent graduates from other schools all over the state. They hurried into the building to get out of the early evening heat.

There was a table set up with punch and desserts. The ice-cold punch was more than welcome. Kaela thought about her waistline—but someone had brought cheese straws, crunchy delectable sticks of Southern heaven. And probably not as fattening as the brownies, or at least she would tell herself that.

Mark introduced her to his uncle Jose, an oil company engineer. That was a different field, but she had a professional interest in fluid dynamics—as anyone who expected to have to deal with energon lines under pressure had better have, although she didn't mention that.

They entered the hall and found seats. This was a professional gathering, not a school function. Many of the people here had been working in their field for years.

_I am an engineer, in my profession I take deep pride. _

_To it I owe solemn obligations. _

Classwork was over. People's lives would depend on the choices this crop of young engineers would make. Mikaela was going to be a medic, so she was exceptionally aware of that. But it was no less true for builders of bridges and designers of pipelines.

She watched her peers, one by one, come to the front of the hall, put their hand through a large ring, and accept the Obligation of the Engineer.

_Since the stone age, human progress has been spurred by the engineering genius. _

_Engineers have made usable nature's vast resources of material and energy for humanity's benefit. _

When her turn came, she silently added "and everyone else's" to that. Humanity was not alone. It never had been—certainly never would be again. Being part of the whole rather than standing at the top of the heap had always been a paradigm shift for her people, but now, it was more vital than ever that they figure it out.

_Engineers have vitalized and turned to practical use the principles of science and the means of technology. _

_Were it not for this heritage of accumulated experience, my efforts would be feeble. _

_As an engineer, I pledge to practice integrity and fair dealing, tolerance, and respect, and to uphold devotion to the standards and the dignity of my profession, conscious always that my skill carries with it the obligation to serve humanity by making the best use of Earth's precious wealth. _

_As an engineer, I shall participate in none but honest enterprises. _

_When needed, my skill and knowledge shall be given without reservation for the public good. _

_In the performance of duty and in fidelity to my profession, I shall give the utmost. _

_- The Obligation of the Engineer _

Standing with friends and strangers, colleagues, perhaps, who had come to accept the Obligation, she made that pledge with a clear conscience. For Mikaela Banes, it was taking an oath she'd already sworn.

Integrity. Fair dealing. Tolerance. Respect. Service. She hadn't learned those things from a textbook.

She'd learned them on the shattered streets of Mission City, looking into the optics of a wounded warrior, down but never out, and answered that silent challenge straight from the heart: "I'll drive. You shoot."

Everything she would ever do, and much of what she had already accomplished, began that day.

-Sidhe Chronicles-

She got back to College Station in the middle of the night, spent her last night in the house there, got her things together, and drove straight through to Albuquerque. She found a motel and got a night's sleep, and a hearty truck stop diner breakfast the next morning, before she crossed the mountains the next day.

It was again the middle of the night when she finally rolled into Tranquility and pulled up in front of her dad's trailer, low on gas. The lights were all off and the door was locked. She fished the spare key out of an empty motor oil can and let herself in.

Her dad wasn't home. Her room was full of junk. Too tired to worry about it, she threw some newspapers and a pizza box off the couch and fell asleep.

The neighbor's barking dog woke her up at the crack of dawn. Rubbing her eyes, she hauled herself off the couch, and discovered a protruding spring by setting the heel of her hand down on it.

"Ouch! Fuckin' hell!"

She went to the sink to wash it off, but a week of dishes were in there. Still cursing, she made her way to the bathroom and used some toilet paper to turn the faucet. "This place is a damn pigpen!"

Her wounded hand taken care of, it penetrated her skull that her old man still was not home. She threw her suitcase back in the car and drove to the garage.

It wasn't much, but she'd had some good times here. Learned a lot from her dad—when he was sober, when he didn't have his head in the clouds over his next foolproof job.

The sign on the door still said "closed." She went around to the garage door and shoved it up.

Her dad was lying in the middle of the first bay.

Mikaela's first thought was that someone had got in while he was working late, robbed him, and left him lying dead. She screamed and ran to him, cracking her knees on the concrete in her haste to check on him.

He was breathing. Snoring, actually. And when she turned him over, the smell of alcohol about knocked her over.

Still kneeling on the oily concrete floor, she ran her hands through her hair as tears started.

Couldn't greet his daughter who was just home from college because he was passed out fucked up drunk.

He wasn't going to change.

She turned him over on his side, leaving him in the recovery position so that if he threw up, he wouldn't choke. Then she locked up the garage, got back in her car, and drove to base without looking back.

Today was the start of a whole new life, and Deke Banes wasn't part of it.

End Part 3


	4. Chapter 4

Disclaimers in Part 1

Nine hundred miles east, across a state line and a mountain range, a small town nestled in the foothills of the Rockies north of Denver. A sleepy place known mostly as a farm town on a state highway, it was the unlikely home of an outpost of modernity that had brought a certain degree of prosperity to the town. From the air, several neat rows of buildings might have been mistaken for a farmer's supply depot or any number of other agricultural businesses, but it was nothing of the sort. This was a server farm. The buildings provided a home for thousands of racks of servers. The roofs of the buildings were covered with solar panels, and secondary to that was a large generator. If the grid went down, the server farm would still remain operational. One of many such installations worldwide, it provided the resources that kept the Internet alive.

The technicians who worked in the scrupulously clean, air conditioned buildings had no idea that they harbored a parasite. Hidden among the server racks was a network that provided a "frame" of sorts for the consciousness of the Decepticon, Soundwave.

Awakening from a defragmentation cycle, the 'Con's first thought was to poll his symbionts, but with a pang of pain, he interrupted that process immediately. Ravage, Frenzy, Rumble, Lazerbeak: Deactivated. Ratbat, Buzzsaw: Status unknown, 95% probability of deactivation.

In a small apartment a few miles away, Soundwave's awakening pinged a local network. Alerted by the computer's alarms, two men settled themselves before their work stations and put on what looked like baseball helmets with attached earphones, mirrored sunglasses and microphones. Cables connected these helmets to the computers.

The older of the two men adjusted his helmet over his freshly shaved head. He imagined it made him a clone of Vin Diesel, but he'd have had to spend significantly more time in the gym to get that look.

While he tried to shed years, his partner had shaved facial hair and dyed his scalp hair gray in attempt to look older.

In their former lives, James Smith had been the director of the clandestine government agency known as Sector 2 as well as the owner of Premium Software, and his associate Dr. Thomas Wilburn was an inventor of direct neural interface technology which offered human beings the opportunity to connect themselves to the Internet with no need for keyboards or monitor screens.

And that was how they had met Soundwave.

It was a real shame about the employees of Premium Software. They could have been part of the next version of humanity. Instead they had chosen to be obsolete.

There was no room in James Smith's world for the obsolete.

Soundwave would not have admitted it in a million vorns, but he had found kindred spirits in Smith and Wilburn. They had filled the void left by his symbionts, and though they would not live long, humans had an advantage over Cybertronians in that they could breed their own replacements. These two had not been difficult to influence, because their own outlook had already been very similar to his. New ones should be even easier to mold and shape.

The necessary elimination of the Premium Software employees had presented a problem, however, requiring Smith and Wilburn to relocate and take up new identities.

It was that which he presented to them now, in the form of files that he sent to their work stations. "Eric Hasson: New identity for James Smith. Ronald Silvers: New identity for Thomas Wilburn. Occupation: Information services technicians. Place of employment: Mountain Springs Data Center. Status: Committed couple."

"You want us to pretend to be gay?" Wilburn, now Silvers, yelped. "There's one problem with that—we aren't gay!"

"Rationale: two unrelated males share an apartment and spend an inordinate amount of time together. Allays suspicions of neighbors."

Smith, now Hasson, said, "That's...actually not a bad reason, Tom—I mean Ronald."

Silvers thought about it and shrugged. "I guess, darling."

"Commencement of employment: Monday at 0900 hours. Memorization of details of new identities: critical."

Hasson looked through the file. "It's all here, but we'll need hard copies of our documentation. Especially driver's licenses."

"Forger: necessary to produce hard copies. Search: in progress."

Silvers said, "There are bound to be plenty in Denver."

Soundwave continued his search for a suitable forger, while the two men began working on their cover IDs. It was going to be a long weekend.

-Sidhe Chronicles-

At NEST HQ, Jazz received a packet of information from Mirage, with more data on the murder victims. The medical examiner still hadn't released a cause of death, but the packet contained photos of the murder victims. He opened the first image. It was identified as Nelson Rota, age 45, senior computer technician. Jazz was struck by two things—the look of abject horror frozen on the man's face, and the two quarter-size burns on his forehead.

"Hey, Chip—ya got a problem with lookin' at a picture of a body? It ain't pretty."

"Seen plenty of real ones that weren't, in Iraq," he replied. "What have you got? Jeez, what happened to the guy? Looks like somethin' scared the poor SOB to death."

"The ME ain't said yet. But look at those marks. They're like the ones on your back, only worse."

Chip zoomed in on one of them. "Could be, Jazz." He dug in a pocket on one of the equipment bags hanging from the arms of his chair, and got out a silver ziplock bag. From it he extracted a flat black rubber pad about an inch square. One side of it had a wire about three inches long projecting from the center of the pad and ending in a socket. The other side was coated with adhesive. "They all look similar to this. Some are different shapes, for different uses. See this spot in the center of the burn, that ain't burned? That's where the wire is, the pad doesn't contact the skin there. You better tell Mirage what they're lookin' for."

"So, these contacts are for connecting the human nervous system to a prosthetic device?" Jazz asked.

"That's what I use 'em for. You can look up TENS units on Wikipedia to find another medical use. But this is somethin' different, this is more like an EEG, but the contacts for that are different—and there are more than just two. I need to see for myself what the hell they were doin' out there," Chip said. "Do all the bodies have those same marks?"

Jazz checked. "Yeah, they do. That information hasn't been given to the press."

Chip called Lennox over and told him about Mirage's find. "I want to go up there, Colonel."

Lennox said, "I don't know, Chip. That's a twenty-hour drive—one way—then the investigation after you get up there. I'm afraid it'd be too hard on you—and then, if anything went south while you were there—we're not trained to help you. Is there any reason you can't do it from here by remote? You'll have the team's telemetry, and they can be your hands on-site. What more could you do there than here?"

Chip started to protest—but then he thought it over. If something did go south, he'd endanger the rest of the team while they got him out. "Nothin', I guess, sir."

"Chip, give it time. You're nowhere near being released from medical care yet. You still got bones healing, for cryin' out loud. This is for now, not forever."

"Yeah. I—I know, sir."

Lennox gripped his shoulder. "This is good work, you two. I think what you just did was crack this case, after we figure it all out. Let somebody else do the grunt work. This is the heavy lifting, right here."

"Thanks, Colonel."

After Lennox left, Chip smacked his hand on the desk. "God dammit!"

Jazz said, "Yeah, it sucks slag. I hate this."

"How long before you get your new frame?"

"Oh, Ratch and Que are workin' on it as fast as they can. An orn, I guess. That ain't that long..."

"Hell, yes it is," Chip said. "You don't have to pretend things are great when you're around me, of all people."

"Hey, how about this? When I get my frame, I'll design my alt form around your chair. Then after ya don't gotta worry about broken bones anymore, we'll _both_ be back in business."

"That could work," the Kentuckian said. A slow grin spread across his face. "That could work like a charm! But there's a lotta places you can't go-"

"Chip, I'm technically a _minibot. _A lot of spec-ops bots are, 'cause we can get in places other bots can't. If I pick the same alt I had before, I'm almost a meter shorter than Bumblebee. I could go in a house if I wanted to. Not like the Sisters, but still, I could get inside. And—I could use a remote. Never had one before, never needed one, but didn't have to worry about teeny little human houses before either. I could attach to a remote as easy as I could this computer or a frame."

"Or—Jazz—you could attach _to my chair!"_

"Primus! Yeah!"

"We could install a motherboard and a lot of flash memory, you could use that for whatever you wanted to."

"Why is that thing completely unarmed?"

"'Cause I built it in a hospital, and they ain't exactly got an armory," Chip replied. "But it does have a hardpoint. I could mount just about anything that doesn't have a back blast."

He shared a diabolical grin with Jazz' holoform. Then the two of them got back to work, Jazz to tell Mirage what they'd discovered, and Chip to try to match the exact kind of contact pad with the burns on the victims.

If Lennox had known what the two of them were plotting, though, he'd have figured out a way to get Chip to Oregon. Quickly.

-Sidhe Chronicles-

Mikaela pulled into the base driveway and showed her ID to a guard at the gate. He made a call, then waved her through.

It was almost as she remembered—the Quonset huts had been freshly painted in desert tan, to reflect as much of the heat as possible without painting them bright white, which would have made them visible against the sand (and a blinding eyesore to the base's residents). There were a lot more vehicles in the lot, as well as in front of the base housing units, and a lot more people moving around. She pulled up in the lot, got out, and almost got knocked over by Brains and Wheelie.

She hugged the two minibots. "How are you guys? Are you OK? I heard about you crashing in the river!"

"Nah, it wasn't exactly a crash, just kinda an emergency landing. Gettin' outta the water was the hard part. They got these sheer walls along the riverbank, if Diarwen hadn't heard me yellin' for help we'd be sleepin' with the fishies!"

"Who's Diarwen?"

"She's this lady who helped us out in Chicago, I don't see her right now but she's around here someplace," Wheelie said. "She jumped in the river with me and helped me keep Brains from sinkin'-he was out like a light. This was after she did somethin' to shut down Sentinel's space bridge."

Bee rolled up and transformed before she heard the rest of what promised to be an extremely long story. He knelt to pick her up and held her to his chest plates for a moment.

"Bee, how the hell have you been? I missed you!"

"Missed you...too."

Neither of them mentioned the elephant in the room named Sam.

They went inside, and more people came up to say hello—the Little Twins, Epps and a few more soldiers who had been with them in Egypt. Epps asked, "Have a good trip out here?"

"Long," she said. "Spent last night on my dad's couch, and the neighbor's dog woke me up at the crack of dawn."

"How is he?"

"Eh—long story," she said.

Epps knew enough of her history to guess at what she wasn't saying, and simply nodded.

Kaela said, "I need to talk to Colonel Lennox pretty soon, if he's available."

"He's in his office—this way." Epps ushered her under the catwalk and across to Lennox' office. The door was open, so he simply tapped on the frame. "Colonel, look who's here!"

"Mikaela! Welcome!" Lennox got up and came over to hug her. "You're looking great! How's the new grad?"

"I'm good! How's everyone here?"

"Good—wait! Kaela, you don't know what happened—you remember Jazz?"

"Will, like I'd forget someone who gave his life to save mine."

"Well, he's—I'm not sure how to say this except say it. He came back as a ghost."

Her jaw dropped. "You're shittin' me."

"I am not. Come on, let's say hello." They crossed Admin, passed the medbay and Wheeljack's lab, then knocked on Jazz' door.

Soon afterwards, Kaela's joyous scream echoed through the hangar. The noise attracted Ratchet, Jolt and Que from med-sci.

It was a while, glad and joyous but still not too long, before they finally let Mikaela go to take care of the formalities associated with a new job. She asked Lennox, "What do I need to do now?"

"Fill out your paperwork and get your physical, then report to Ratchet to find out what your schedule's going to be."

She did all that, and by that time it was getting near the 1800 hours shift change. Ratchet asked her, "Have you found a place to stay?"

"Not exactly. I had planned to stay with my dad until I got paid, but that didn't work out."

Ratchet said, "You are my apprentice, so you will stay with me."

"You never have room for you, much less anyone else, in your quarters," she smiled. "But I was wondering if I could get quarters on base?"

Lennox scratched his head. "Right now we're full up on both sides of the commons. We have a few married couples with no kids sharing apartments. I'd like to have you on base, Mikaela, but I don't know of anyone who has a spare bedroom right now."

"Well, I guess I'll camp in my car till payday, if that's OK," she shrugged. To her, it was not a big deal, she had sacked out in worse places, and she couldn't imagine a safer crash spot than the NEST parking lot.

Wheeljack said, "I do not precisely have a spare room, but I do _have _room, in that my quarters are not stuffed floor to ceiling with medbay supplies. It would surely be more comfortable than the back seat of your car."

Lennox said, "Or anyone's couch, for that matter. You're not camping in your car. And one reason for moving out here was to minimize the security risk people living off base present. We know there are still 'Cons around, because Ironhide and his boys captured a bunch of them."

Que shot a look at Ratchet, and pinged a text to Lennox's phone. "Do not mention this to Ratchet, but does Diarwen not have a spare room?"

Lennox read it, then put the phone away as if the message were unimportant. "I'll check around and find you a bunk. Meanwhile, you're probably pretty hungry, aren't you?"

"Starving," she admitted. She'd been too mad at her dad to eat much earlier.

Lennox pointed her to the mess, then he went in search of Diarwen, finding her on her way somewhere. "Wait up a second, Diarwen."

"Of course, Will. What do you need of me?"

"Are you busy?"

"I promised my time to Jazz this evening, but I can spare a few moments."

"Mikaela Banes is here; she's basically a member of the family, Sam's ex, and she was up to her eyeballs with the rest of us from Mission City to Egypt. She's just got out of school, and she's coming home to work. We thought it was a done deal that she was going to stay with her dad but...that situation is complicated. It didn't work out. Right now, you've got the only spare room on base. I was wondering if it would be too much of an imposition if she could be your roommate for a while."

"It would be no imposition at all. I am rarely there except to sleep. May I meet her?"

"Thank you, Diarwen, that would be great. She just went to the mess hall."

"Let me tell Jazz where I will be, and then I will make arrangements with Mikaela to move her things in."

"That's fine." He went back to his office, and found a message light blinking. It was Mearing, and he had just missed the call. It was, what, 2100 on the East Coast. She was working late. He returned the call.

"Director, I'm sorry, I stepped out of my office for a few minutes. What's up?"

"Just wanted to give you a heads-up, you can expect a delegation from the Senate Armed Services Committee."

"Thanks for the warning. What are they upset about this time?"

"Your tax dollars at work. Be prepared to justify expenses. Between you, me, and the doorknob, I think they just want to meet the Autobots. Make sure the Little Twins and the Wreckers are sober, and it might be wise to keep the ex-'Cons out of sight."

"We can do that," Lennox assured her.

Three time zones away, the Director kicked her high heels off and stretched her feet under her desk. "I'm sure you can. The other reason I called is that Seymour may have a lead on S10. He wants Sam to talk to a potential witness. I'd like to borrow Epps."

"Okay. Why Epps?"

"The witness lives in Fort Walton Beach, and Epps grew up around there. Also, Epps has a level head and a lot of experience, and Sam pays attention to him. This guy is almost seventy, living in a retirement community, so it's probably an unnecessary precaution..."

"There are very few unnecessary precautions," Lennox replied. "I'll put him on a plane. You want him to come to DC, or meet Sam in Fort Walton Beach?"

"Might as well meet him there tomorrow afternoon; saves him one leg of the trip. I'll have Li text him the hotel arrangements. Sam can brief him when he gets there."

"Yes, sir."

"Is everything going smoothly at HQ, except for the invaders from Capitol Hill?"

"Sort of. We've got a housing crisis on the horizon. I had to bunk Kaela in with Diarwen."

"Will! They're civilians, you can't just assign them roommates!"

"Why not? They've got to sleep somewhere. Kaela sort of had arrangements with her dad...but that fell through.":

"I'm not surprised."

"No. If she's going to distance herself from him, I'll be the last to discourage her. I'd rather he wasn't too close to her the next time he boosts a car."

"I wish to hell he'd try to boost Ironhide," Mearing replied.

Lennox snorted. That was exactly the kind of learning experience the jerk needed. "Also I don't want her living off base to begin with, she'd be a high-value target for the 'Cons. I'd have to get Prime to assign her a guardian, and they're stretched thin already. I couldn't say much when she was going to move in with her father, but now that she's looking for a place, it works out better if she's here."

"I have to agree. If she has no objections, and Diarwen doesn't either, I'll push the paperwork through."

-Sidhe Chronicles-

Mikaela found an empty seat in the mess and dug into her chicken casserole. A moment later, a tall slender woman in BDUs, but with a long white-blond braid that was not remotely military came over. "Mikaela Banes?"

"That's me," she said, raising a hand. "What can I do for you?"

"I am Diarwen ni Gilthanel. Colonel Lennox has told me that you are looking for a roommate?"

"Well, yes."

"As it happens, I have a spare room, which you are welcome to use. Would you be interested?"

"Yes, as a matter of fact I would. Umm—You don't smoke, do you?"

"No, no I do not."

"OK, great! I don't either."

"I am in Building A, the fourth apartment on the right. I will make sure that I have not left things in the spare room. When you have finished your meal, please come over."

"Thank you! I appreciate this so much!"

Diarwen nodded a courteous bow, then left.

Kaela asked the soldier sitting next to her, "She isn't from around here, is she?"

The soldier laughed, and grinned at her. "You could say that, yeah."

Puzzled, Mikaela made quick work of her supper, then hurried over to Diarwen's apartment.

There was a wonderful smell when Diarwen let her inside, Mikaela quickly traced that to several bunches of herbs which had been hung up to dry. A harp and a tambourine also caught her eye, as did a chain mail shirt hung over a stand in the corner—and a sword and bow on a rack on the wall, quiver almost empty underneath it.

Mikaela realized she wasn't getting your average roommate.

"Welcome," Diarwen said. "Your room is on the left. I was unsure how to share a bathroom, and so I put my own things into a basket, to take with me in and out. Will that work for you?"

"I shared a two-bathroom house with seven other people, Diarwen, and that sounds like heaven," Mikaela said. "I'll get a basket as quickly as I can."

"Fair enough. Can I help you bring your things in?"

"Thanks! I'd appreciate that. I don't have a lot."

All Mikaela brought with her from Texas was her clothes, her TV and stereo, a box of CDs, some reference books, her picture albums. A phone charger and the sack of stuff that went in the bathroom completed the haul.

Diarwen detached one of two keys to the apartment and handed it to Mikaela, and as she did so her finger brushed the young woman's ring.

"Ow!" Diarwen popped her finger in her mouth.

"What happened? It's a new ring, does it have a sharp edge...? Are you all right?"

Diarwen inspected the injury; only a tiny burn. "No. It is iron, you see—I have a sensitivity to it."

Mikaela took off the chain she was wearing and used it to wear the ring around her neck. It would be safe inside her tee for the time being. There would be no way she and Diarwen could share an apartment without touching hands. "If just touching iron can give you a burn like that, how on earth do you live on this base?"

"Very carefully!" Diarwen grinned. "I wear gloves most of the time when I am around the buildings."

"OK, I'm thinking there aren't too many humans allergic to iron—considering that we need it to live. Are you an alien, like the Cybertronians?"

"The short answer is yes, although I do have a few human ancestors. I am of the Daoine Sidhe. Your people also call us the Fae, or the Fair Folk. Some confuse us with elves—they are Scandinavian."

"I've seen a ghost today, so don't look at me like I'm gonna run out the door screaming because you told me that. If I'd known, I wouldn't have worn my ring in here, and that's all that would be different."

Diarwen nodded. "It has significance for you."

"Yes, it's a symbol of professional commitment. It's worn on the pinky finger of my working hand, as a reminder of that commitment. But I don't think anyone ever meant for it to be a hazard to my roommate. I'm sorry."

"There is a learning curve to every new endeavor. My diet is usually more of an issue. I must avoid foods with chemical preservatives, that sort of thing."

"There used to be an organic market in Tranquility; if it's still there, we should go. I used to get the best tomatoes there. And mint, for tea." Kaela suddenly found herself longing for a cup of peppermint tea.

"I shall look forward to that. I have been limiting myself to the organic section of the same supermarket where everyone shops—and 'limiting' is indeed the word. I am afraid that I must go now. Jazz is waiting."

"Diarwen—thanks, again."

"Think nothing of it, you are more than welcome. I would ask one thing of you, though, Mikaela."

"What's that?"

"If you should hear rumors about me, please hear my side of it before making up your mind. I will tell you the truth, upon that I give you my word."

"Fair enough. Don't know yet what this is about, but look, military base, scuttlebutt? Goes with the territory. Best thing to do is ignore it."

"And that is precisely what I said! It does not, however, seem to be going away."

"One of those. Don't worry, I'll take anything I hear with a grain of salt. I mean, y'know, I'm the floozie who broke Sam's heart."

Diarwen said, "I have not known him long, but I cannot say that he seems in any way brokenhearted to me!"

"Well, there you go."

"Lock up if you leave. It is easy to forget because no one here would steal, but there are regulations."

"Sure thing, but I'm not planning on going anywhere. I drove two days to get here, then today was a pretty long day too."

"I see. Rest well, then. I will be quiet when I come in."

For all Mikaela knew, she might have been. She might also have played "Dueling Tubas" with Epps (or more likely Sideswipe) right outside Mikaela's door, and it wouldn't have made any difference.

End Part 4


	5. Chapter 5

Disclaimers in Part 1

Chip found a couple of types of contact pads that might have produced the marks on the Premium Software victims, and sent the information to the team in Oregon. Then he asked Jazz, "What would you have to do to attach to my chair?"

"Oh, that's easy, as long as the batteries have a charge."

"Hop on," Chip offered.

"I don't know—Chip, I don't care what Diarwen said, I'm not convinced it would be harmless if I started drainin' energy from ya. I'm not sure I know how to stop, other than by movin' away from ya, and there won't be another electrical source to jump to. I'd have ta, well, free-fall is a pretty good approximation."

"Nothin' to stop me from ditchin' if I have to," Chip pointed out. "And we won't be too far from people who could help. You been bucked off the horse, big time—but you still gotta climb back on."

There was an infinitesimal pause as Jazz looked up the reference. "All right, but if Ratchet starts raisin' Pit about it, this was your idea."

"What Ratchet don't know won't hurt him," Chip said blithely.

Jazz had to agree with that; they'd never get anything at all done if they paid too much attention to what might set Ratchet off. Generally, as long as nobot was losing energon, it was all good.

"Here goes." Jazz got a feel for the chair's simple electrical field, then released his mainframe and hopped to the chair's battery. It was easier than attaching to Diarwen's phone had been.

Once they got away from the base, Chip took his hand off the controls and said, "Give it a try."

In his previous life, Jazz would never have considered twenty miles an hour "fast." But flying along three feet above the sand, it was, satisfyingly so.

They got to the rock before Diarwen and Optimus. Jazz released the chair and drifted over the sand nearby.

Chip heard someone moving around above them, and looked up to see a couple of men rock-climbing. "Hi there!" he called. Better to let them know there were people below, than have them drop a carabiner on someone's head—or be startled by a sudden noise and fall.

They rappelled down the rock face and pulled off their helmets, revealing Darlington and Pritchart from S5. Chip held out his hand. "I'm Chase. That's Jazz."

They shook hands politely enough, but as soon as they saw Jazz they went on alert—Chip recognized it immediately, but Jazz really hadn't been around humans enough to learn to read their body language. And the saboteur was gregarious; he wouldn't often encounter a human who was … was 'suspicious' the word he wanted, Chip wondered? At any rate, these two put up a perfect front of affability toward the Cybertronian, with only one flaw: it failed to fool Chip Chase.

Darlington asked, "You know anything about the rocks around here? Where's a good climb?"

"I'm new here myself, joined the team on Diego. But any of the NEST team who've been stationed here for a while would know. Give me a second, and I'll call the OD and ask."

The OD, or officer of the day, was the person at the desk in charge of base security at bases like Mission City which were too small to have a provost marshal's office. All the commissioned officers below command rank, as well as the Autobots, took turns at this duty. It was boring enough that no one minded being interrupted by questions from the base's civilians and visitors. Arcee was working that shift, and repeated Chip's question to the nearest NEST soldier. He directed the S5 agents up a canyon not too far from Buzzard Rock, advising that the canyon walls offered some challenging climbs at a somewhat higher skill level than that required by the Rock itself.

Chip wasn't sure why—the two agents hadn't done anything wrong—but he was relieved when they left, and even more relieved when Optimus and Diarwen arrived a few minutes later.

Diarwen asked immediately, "Chip, what's wrong?"

"Nothin', I hope. Probably nothin'." Chip turned to Optimus. "Sir, what do we know about those S5 guys? Their background, I mean."

"You would have to ask Colonel Lennox about that, Sergeant. Is there a reason for your query?"

Chip shook his head. "I—I'm trained in how to deal with being at a disadvantage. What to look for. Those guys, when they saw Jazz—they hit Defcon 2. Oh, they did a good job of handling it. They didn't do a damn thing wrong—I'm not saying they did! Matter of fact they went way out of their way _not_ to cause a confrontation. But they moved right into positions where they could cover each other. They were just waiting for us...for Jazz...to go on the offense."

Optimus said, "I am speculating here. But their duties seem to include dealing with hostile supernatural entities of varying types. It may be that their experience has led them to expect all such to be hostile. If that is the case, their restraint speaks well of them."

Jazz said, "Yeah, if Ah'm the first ghost they met who didn't try to do 'em in, Ah appreciate bein' given the benefit o' the doubt."

Diarwen thought about it. "I concur, Chip. That seems the most likely explanation. I have been keeping my distance from them as well, for they had a similar reaction to me. A remark that I overheard gives me to believe that they have most likely confused me with my cousins, the Fae of the Unseelie Court."

Chip said, "Still—around here, that could make 'em loose cannons, if they misunderstand anythin' or take somethin' they see the wrong way."

Optimus said, "I will discuss the situation with Colonel Lennox in the morning. If misunderstandings exist, they should be corrected."

With that, they turned their attention to their purpose for being here. Diarwen asked, "Chip, might I ask you to move your chair over there in the shade, and keep a watch?"

"Sure will."

Once the electrical field of his chair was far enough away that it no longer affected them, Diarwen asked, "How long have you been away from Chip's wheelchair, Jazz?"

He found out immediately that he had no accurate way to tell time, without even the mainframe's internal clock. "Ah'd estimate, ten klicks. No more'n fifteen."

"That is close enough. You will learn to tell time by the position of the sun. At night, the moon and stars make it even easier. Now. How much energy have you used in that time?"

"Ah can't tell," he admitted. "It don't feel like any."

"Indeed, it should not. The amount of energy that you need to expend simply to stay in this reality and to manifest a form which others can see is not a great amount. You probably will not begin to feel weak or hungry—I have heard other ghosts describe it both ways—for several hours, in the absence of other exertion."

"How do Ah start?"

"With the understanding that we are safe here. It is like any other form of training—I am not concerned about the psychic equivalent of minor scratches and bruises, but I will not allow either of us to come to serious harm."

He nodded understanding. Vorns of training with Prowl had taught him that principle—until the student learned control, it was the master's responsibility to exercise that control for both of them.

"Now, approach me slowly. Be aware of my aura and yours. Watch the interaction. Do not attempt to draw energy from me, but do not attempt to stop it either. Simply observe what happens."

"Ya already know what's gonna happen, right?" Jazz asked her.

"Yes," the Sidhe said, and there was, Jazz realized later, that about her which inspired his trust. She did know, and he could relax into that.

Jazz approached her slowly, as she had instructed. At first, nothing happened. But as he drew closer, their energy fields began to interact, tendrils interlacing—and a very mild flow of energy began. It was as natural as water seeking its level, or wind blowing from an area of high pressure to low. And, as Diarwen had told him many times, it wasn't strong enough to be dangerous.

"You can feel that, correct?" she said.

"Yeah, I sure can. You can too, huh."

"Oh yes. It's very clear, when one knows what to look for. You would have to stay next to me for several days for this to do me any harm. Now, can you draw more energy, deliberately?"

He hesitated. "I'm not sure I wanna do that, Diarwen."

His instructor smiled. "That is why both Optimus and Chip are here, Jazz. If you have so much more power than I that you inadvertently do me harm, I have backup, and so do you, should it go the other way."

"Yeah. But."

She grinned. "I know. I knocked my own teacher unconscious once, but he told me that was his fault, and our priestess confirmed that. So, Jazz, can you do this? See the amount of energy you can draw as a dial, with the numbers one to ten written around it. Right now you are at one. Dial it up to two."

It took him a while, but just as the stars were coming out he managed to do what she asked. "Wow!" he said. "It's really there, innit?"

"Indeed it is. At this rate, I could be in your presence for as long as a day, perhaps, before I began to feel fatigued."

"What's it feel like?" he said curiously.

"A cool breeze. Not at all unwelcome!" she said, and grinned.

Optimus kicked up his fans a bit, and stirred the air around teacher and student. He angled a bit of a breeze toward Chip, as well. Diarwen's fields suffused with gratitude, and Optimus caught a startled reaction from Jazz.

He was about to ping the saboteur with the glyphs for "Get used to it," when he realized he had no way to do so. Or at least, no way to do so yet.

Down on the desert sands, Diarwen was saying, "Now I am going simply to perceive you, and then I shall attempt to draw energy from you."

"All right."

It was not an unpleasant experience, more like having a friend turn his or her warm regard to one than anything else, Jazz thought. Although for the first time the saboteur understood that his teacher was not, never had been, human. Her fields were totally different from Chip's, or Sam's, or for that matter Mikaela's. He wondered if he could touch bases with Parker about that; perhaps it was the chemistry of the body that generated electric fields.

"Now I shall draw energy from you, Jazz." The contact was still pleasant, while becoming suddenly…was "demanding" the word he wanted, Jazz wondered?

"Ah kin feel that," he said a few minutes later. "Ah really kin. It'd take you about a day to drain me, Ah think."

The sapping contact snapped. "Good! Now I want you to try to do the same to me."

He sent out the contact, but there was…something…in his way. He couldn't define it, or even perceive it, but it stopped him. "Ah can't. What did you do?"

"That is a shield. When you met Director Mearing, doubtless you encountered hers; they are very good."

"Yeah. She's like lookin' into a mirror, except it don't reflect anythin' back to ya."

"That is my experience too. Now, 'dial up' your power, and try it again."

He got to ten on the dial without result. "Ah hate ta tell ya this, Diarwen, but you're stronger than me. Ah can't get through."

"It does not surprise me," she said with a grin, tossing the silver braid over her shoulder. "I have slightly more than two hundred vorn of practice under my belt. Tell me, Jazz, when you were coming here, how did you keep from draining Sergeant Chase?"

He had to stop and think about it. "It wasn't–I wasn't really in contact with him, only with his chair. I'd hafta be in contact with him to do that."

"Sergeant Chase, did you feel Jazz' presence?"

Chip tilted his head to one side. "Maybe. It was a little cooler comin' out here than I expected it to be."

Diarwen shifted her focus back to Jazz. "So you see, Jazz, you have to make a deliberate effort to connect to someone to drain them. But now I am going to teach you how to shield, so that you can, for instance, ride with me back to the base, and you need have no concern for Sergeant Chase's safety if you are with him."

Chip said, "Um, excuse me, Diarwen. You an' me, we got off on the wrong foot, and that was my doin'. I'm sorry for it. Do you think you might call me 'Chip'? I ain't really a sergeant any more."

She bowed her head. "I should be happy to do so, Chip."

Optimus rumbled into speech. "As to having Jazz ride back to base with you, Diarwen, I fear I must forbid that until all of us are a little more conversant with the situation in which we find ourselves."

"Very well," she said. She would not argue with Optimus in front of those he supervised, whether human or Cybertronian (or ghost thereof). "But Jazz, to learn shielding, I was going to touch on visualization. Is that an unfamiliar skill to you?"

"Nah, used it a lot back on Cybertron."

Optimus said curiously, "Oh? How?"

The saboteur's fields washed with humor. "Whenever you give me an assignment, I pictured it comin' off perfectly, me handlin' everything that came my way and not lettin' any of it slow me down. Worked pretty well, even that time Soundwave caught me in his quarters."

Optimus grinned. Of course he remembered that report; what he had told no one was that he had copied it into a file whose title glyphs might have translated to, "Things Which Amuse Me Greatly." Though that particular section bore the subtitle, "Soundwave gets his comeuppance."

Diarwen, when she was sure they were through, said, "Very well. Jazz, you can remember Director Mearing's shields. What did they feel like to you?"

He frowned. "A mirror, sort of. Except it didn't reflect anythin' back, just kept you from seein' inside."

"Sort of like a sheet of Mylar," Chip said.

"Yeah. Yeah! That's it, exactly."

"Well then," said Diarwen, who would later pursue what "a sheet of Mylar" might be, "imagine a sheet of Mylar, and then make it into a circle around yourself. You can see and perceive perfectly through it, but no one else can get inside it, or penetrate it, without your permission."

"Okay," Jazz said, after a moment.

"Now, I am going to try to break it. I cannot tell you what that will feel like, but you must try to resist. Wherever the dial on your sheet of Mylar is," she said with a grin, "you will have to turn it up. Don't worry about how long you can hold out. There is no bad outcome to this exercise, Jazz, it simply shows us where we are."

When his resistance broke–it was, he thought, a lot like resisting Soundwave, before he'd found the music trick–he felt Diarwen in her entirety for a moment, and suddenly understood why Ratchet feared her. He was glad not to be her enemy; she was in her own way as ruthless and practical a warrior as Mirage, the only one of the Autobots he had feared when he was a Decepticon.

Well. Outside of Prime and Ironhide.

He was also glad Prime was not her enemy: pretty much the opposite, in fact. But he said only, "Wow! That was somethin'. Glad you got the control, Teach. Ya coulda knocked me on my aft there."

"I resisted the impulse," she smiled. "Now it is your turn. Can you get through mine?"

Cybertronians cannot sweat as humans do, but Jazz would have sworn he felt his fans kick on from exertion. "No," he said, "Ah can't."

"It was an impressive try, though. The next thing I want you to do is visualize your energy coming to a point, and penetrating your target's defenses. I should like to find a scorpion for you to practice that on."

Ten minutes' hunt turned up one of the creatures; the sun had gone down, and they were becoming active. Jazz "pointed" his energy and loosed it at the scorpion, which levitated off the sand, did a one-eighty, and fell onto its back. It waved its claws and tried to flex its tail, but there was nothing to sting, and its movements slowed, then abruptly stopped.

Chip and Diarwen gaped at it, and then at him. "Good job," Diarwen said. "Can you do that again?"

"I spotted a tarantula a little ways from Chip's chair," Jazz said, to Chip's neck-wrenching consternation. "Let's see if I can find it."

The tarantula had investigated Chip's wheels but found them inedible and moved on, turning to face them from a tuft of desert sage. It froze into attack, back on its six hind legs, front two raised and its biting parts extended, when Jazz touched it, then died in that position—a clean kill this time, no need for a mercy strike to end the creature's suffering.

How some of Soundwave's attacks worked were now perfectly, horrifyingly, clear to the ghost. No wonder his hackers had been so afraid to meet Soundwave on the Net—and no wonder so many had died. They had not understood that such attacks even existed—much less how to defend against them.

Sometime after he'd been surprised in the mech's quarters, early in the war, Soundwave had happened onto this knowledge. The information Diarwen was giving him now was what he needed to know in order to fight the would-be warlord.

"Jazz," Optimus said, "please come to the clearing-out of the children's playground. We are going to get all of the spiders and scorpions out of the area, then put up an energy barrier around it. You would be of great help." He turned to Diarwen. "And you're coming too, I hope?"

"Of course." She faced Jazz again. "Since you know now that I have more power, at this point, than do you, I want you to try to knock me out."

Optimus, with an effort of will, kept "Noooo!" off his lip-plates. His beloved she might be, but she knew what she was doing, and he had to trust that, and trust her.

Jazz' first effort actually staggered Diarwen, and Optimus' hand went out to her. She clutched at it, saved herself from falling, and said, "Thank you," giving a small squeeze and suffusing his fields with gratitude. "Not bad at all," she said to Jazz. "I am wondering, though, how to give you practice, outside of hunting scorpions and biting spiders."

"Don't ya think that oughta be enough? I mean, I killed that first one, but it suffered. They're just bugs, but I'd like ta get good enough at it to knock 'em off with one shot at a distance."

"Yes, perhaps for now confining your target practice to insects may be best. Do try, though, to increase your power. Do you meditate? That is the single greatest aid to this work."

"Yeah, a little. I can put more time into it, see where it gets me."

Diarwen smiled. "Good. For right now, Jazz, I want you to come so close to me that you can access my energy, and then put up your shield, while you stay in contact with me. The goal here is to show you how to put up the shield and keep it in place between yourself and a person you contact."

It didn't take Jazz long to complete picking up that skill. Chip had yawned a time or two, and Diarwen, who had come here without eating – it kept her sharp to do so – was beginning to be very hungry.

"All right, Jazz. Here is yet another test. I want you to draw energy from me, not quickly at first."

Had he had a body, that effort would have kicked his fans into high. He didn't, though, and he completed the task, but could only hold the contact for a few minutes.

"That is good for a start," Diarwen said. "Now, if in a few days, I come to you and give you permission to draw some energy from me, do you think you will be able to?"

"Yeah, I think so. Tell you what, though, I'd like ta learn ta do that to a 'con. Specifically, Soundwave."

Diarwen laughed. "All in good time. We've made a very good start today, though. If you will come and practice the Sword Dance with me every morning, we will move on to Soundwave's comeuppance in a few days, not more than a week."

Jazz grinned. "I'll hold ya to that," he said.

"I think I may ask Arag – I mean, Erik – of S13 to practice with you. He could channel energy to help Nathan when Sufri attacked, where I was not able to."

Jazz and Optimus both blinked. "He's more powerful than you are?" Jazz finally said, with a glance at his Prime.

Diarwen said, "A good thing, is it not, that he and I decided not to pursue our races' quarrel with one another?"

Chip said in a stunned voice, "So, right now, on base, we've got…four races?"

"Sidhe, Fomori, Cybertronian, human, and two ghosts, one human, one Cybertronian," Diarwen said. She cocked her head. "I do not know if that adds up to four, five, or six."

-Sidhe Chronicles-

As they went back to base, Jazz attached to Chip's chair, Diarwen mounted on Optimus' collar fairing, the former Tech Sergeant was silent, but puzzled. As he went through his nightly routine, he thought hard about what he had witnessed.

What had they been doing? From his point of view, Diarwen and a barely-visible disturbance in the hot desert air faced one another, spoke to one another (which he could also hear), and then, after Diarwen had given Jazz instructions, did nothing until she (usually) spoke again. Except that time when she almost fell down, which was…spooky.

He took those thoughts to bed with him, and the next morning, when he went to the firing range with Binns, to teach him how to shoot, he found the Sidhe there with Mikaela, on the same errand.

"Ma'am." he said, craning his neck upward, "yesterday, what precisely were y'all doin' out there?"

The Sidhe and the human watched their pupils shoot for a moment. Then Diarwen said, "Have you never had a girlfriend who was into New Age things, Chip?"

"No, ma'am. Not before I went in. Been no time since I came home, an' all the nurses weren't…well, they just weren't New Agers, ma'am."

Diarwen grinned, and squatted beside his chair, which brought her down to his level. "Medical personnel rarely are. What Jazz and I were doing was simple energy management. I could teach you the basics right now, if you wished."

He looked at her warily. "I don't haveta believe anythin' to make this work, do I?"

"Nothing at all. Oh, it might help to believe that I am not a figment of your imagination, but that is about it." He grinned, she returned it, and then stood up. "Excuse me for a moment. Mikaela is having trouble, and I need to point out something to her."

He watched her walk up to the other woman, taking her arm and explaining something, then checking the sight for her. He could see right away that Mikaela was a somewhat more advanced shooter than Jack, who had no experience beyond shooting BB guns at cans. Kaela was handling the weapon correctly, but tensing in anticipation of the recoil, throwing off her aim. And for all her old-fashioned ways, Diarwen knew her way around military rifles.

The sun came up, and turned one woman's hair to silver, the other's to gold.

Chip Chase realized that he had never seen anyone in his life as beautiful as Mikaela Banes in BDUs, standing in a shaft of sunshine, learning to shoot a rifle.

He tucked that thought away for later, rolled over to Binns. "You doin' okay?"

"Nah, lousy. But it gets better with practice. I'm missing by less."

"Good. Listen, I wanna talk to Diarwen a minute. You okay with some more shooting?"

"Yes, I am. Can we do this again?"

"I've gotta keep my eye in too. How about we tack a half-hour on the range onto the end of the morning routine?"

"Works for me," Binns said, and jacked up a round like he knew what he was doing.

Back at their shaded spot, Diarwen said to him. "Hold your hands out in front of yourself, and begin to move them together. See if you can feel resistance as they come closer. If you do not, move them apart, and try again."

Chip did as he was told. It took a few tries, but suddenly: "Hey yeah! I can feel it!"

Diarwen, again squatting beside him, said, "That is the basis of everything Jazz and I did, Chip. We perceived and moved energy, and that was all."

"Really. This's pretty cool," he said, playing Invisible Basketball with himself. "I'm going to have to ask Parker about this. There could be somethin' here I can work with."

"If you can find out how to negate the need for a physical interface, like those back pads you use to run your chair, it would be a great boon to many people," Diarwen said.

"Yeah! I know we generate a very weak EM field, and that bots can perceive each others' and our own fields. But nobody's ever thought to use them for controlling cybernetics. This'd be great." The handsome face under its freckles and shock of red hair (definitely no longer military length) smiled at her, but the eyes were clearly preoccupied. "Thanks, Diarwen."

She smiled and nodded, and rose to leave with Mikaela.

End Part 5


	6. Chapter 6

Disclaimers in Part 1

Mikaela parted with Diarwen at the entrance to building C, where the Sidhe went towards Barricade's apartment for her sparkling-sitting shift. Kaela continued to the center building, and grabbed a bottle of cold water before entering medbay. After one of the S11 twins had keeled over from heat exhaustion during PT the other day, both Parker and Ratchet were on a hydration kick. For once, Lennox was backing the nannying—their guests needed to get it through their heads how vital it was to get plenty of water in this environment, particularly for those who were active outdoors during the day.

Medbay was quiet, so Ratchet sent Mikaela to help Wheeljack work on the protoforms. She would learn more about Cybertronian anatomy and physiology from that than she ever could from datapads.

Wheeljack saw her take her ring from her chain and put it on, since it wasn't dangerous for the fine assembly work she was doing. She gave it a thoughtful look, then asked, "Que, would an epoxy resin be likely to interact with anything in here?"

"That depends on which epoxy. Some of them are quite flammable in a liquid state, but once cured, most are relatively safe. Why?"

"This is my Engineer's ring. It symbolizes my professional commitment to my craft, and I wear it on the pinky finger of my dominant hand, the one I write with, to keep myself reminded of the Engineer's Oath I took." She paused, as the Cybertronian had that slightly abstracted look which meant he was Web-surfing. When he came back, she said, "The problem is, it's steel, and Diarwen's sensitive to iron."

"And you had thought of encasing it in epoxy?"

"Yeah, I took a jewelrymaking course one semester for an elective and we made a steampunk necklace by setting little watch parts and stuff in epoxy."

"I may have a better idea. You know that the transparent parts of our alts are not glass but a more durable substance which can be worked like metal. I have seen Diarwen handle it many times without protective gloves. She is in fact considering it as a possible substitute for the metal used in her armor and blade weapons. How tightly does the ring fit your finger?"

She positioned the ring at her largest knuckle. "There isn't a lot of room."

"We might have to size the ring in order to leave clearance."

"I can do that, considering that we have the equipment to work with steel here. And I still have my jewelry-making tools from that class. It's an interesting hobby, and I made a little spending money at flea markets when I was in school."

Wheeljack gave her a scrap of the transparent material to work with. "Get a feel for its properties with that. I have some small bits of higher quality that would be perfect for your ring, once you are comfortable working with it. Be careful to wear goggles. It does have a shear plane. It doesn't shatter as easily as glass, but if you hit it at the wrong angle, bits can fly more easily than other materials that we usually hammer."

"Thanks, Que!"

"Do not mention this to Ratchet—at least, do not tell him why you are working with it. We will be working with it for the protoforms, specifically Jazz' visor, which will require some custom fabrication."

"What's up with Ratchet and Diarwen?"

"I have no desire to get in the middle of that. I would advise you to stay out of it as well, as much as you can. Perhaps you should ask Diarwen about it, though, so that you will know what to avoid."

"OK. Thanks for the heads-up." Mikaela put her safety goggles on and began to play (she didn't think of it as "work") with the material. She took to it so quickly that Que started her fabricating the screen of Jazz' visor while he constructed the HUD components. They spent a quiet second joor on that, and had the visor completed by lunch break.

-Sidhe Chronicles-

Bobby Epps stepped out of the air-conditioned terminal into the sauna-like heat of a humid Florida afternoon. He didn't like flying commercial—too many crying kids. He got enough of that at home. And your own squalling baby was less annoying than someone else's. Particularly when the baby had a bratty sister who threw peanuts all over the cabin—and neither the mother nor the flight attendant cared.

After a guy in a suit got tired of the annoyance and asked the mother to do something about her kids, and got screamed at, no one else had dared say anything.

Sam honked the horn of a government SUV when he saw Epps. Bobby broke into a trot to get out of the heat faster. He started to pitch his bag in the back, but thought better of it. "This isn't, um, one of ours, is it?"

Sam grinned. "No, just a rental. I wish it could drive itself, in this traffic!"

Epps got in and closed the door, sighing in relief at the air conditioning. "Where are we going?"

"I already checked us in the motel, it's that Days Inn over there. Remind me to give you your keycard when we get where I can dig my wallet out. You want to go over there first and drop your bag off?"

"What kind of restaurant do they have?"

"Just a breakfast buffet, but there's a fish place next door that looked pretty good."

"That'll do," Epps said. Anywhere with food and coffee, hold the roaches, would do. "What's this all about, anyway? The colonel said you'd brief me when I got here."

"Simmons found this retired guy that the director of S10 reported to back in the eighties. All we know about the director is his code name, Helix."

"What about the guy?"

"His name's Lucien Darnell; he was an assistant CIA director at the time. He's sixty-eight now. He and his wife live in a CIA retirement community—it's one of those gated places, and you have to be a retired CIA agent to live there. They provide security for each other, and I'll bet they spy on each other too—to make sure nobody sells us out to the Russians or anything."

"Makes sense. They're not gonna shut us up for knowing where it is, are they?"

Sam said, "All I know is, Mearing said mention her name if anyone asks questions."

"Are you serious?"

"As a heart attack. I'm not a hundred percent sure _she_ was...she's Mearing."

"Yeah." Epps was silent a moment. "She and Simmons are probably having a good laugh about it right now."

-Sidhe Chronicles-

The lunch was good, the roaches absent, and the fish fresh and local. Afterward, they got back in the car, suffered until the A/C could take the edge off, and drove to Lucien Darnell's gated, walled retirement community, a few miles out of town.

At first glance, it differed from any other such communities all over the Sunbelt only in its proximity to Hurlburt Field, the home of U.S. Spec Ops.

A guard at the gate gave them a good once-over before tapping on Sam's window glass. He rolled it down. "State your names and your business."

"I'm Sam Witwicky, this is Robert Epps. I'm going to get my ID out."

The guard nodded permission, and Sam showed him his government ID.

"We're here to see Mr. Darnell, at 108 Orange Blossom Road."

"Is he expecting you?"

"No, sir."

Epps slowly got out his own ID, which boasted a higher clearance level than Sam's. "This is official NEST business, sir."

The guard checked the ID carefully, and gave the SUV a narrow-eyed look. "Is this two visitors or three?"

"Just two," Sam replied.

"All right, you may proceed. It's just ahead on your right."

"Thank you, sir." Sam put the window up as he watched the house numbers. An old lady walking a large black lab gave them the hairy eyeball as they passed, and Epps noticed curtains moving. Strangers were definitely tracked inside this little slice of Florida.

He wondered if someday the base would have a street of houses full of retired NEST agents.

"One-oh-eight, there it is, Sam, the one with the blue Chevy out front."

Sam parked and they went up to the door, tucking their sunglasses in their shirt pockets as they went up the front walk.

Mr. Darnell opened the door to Sam's knock. He was bald. He had once been tall but arthritis had bent his back, though he was still much more trim than most men half his age. "What can I do for you fellas?"

They once again produced their identification. "If you have a minute, we'd like to talk to you."

"Come on in. NEST, is it? You boys had some excitement up in Chicago."

Epps laughed without humor. "Yes, sir, some people might call it that." They followed him through the living room to a breezeway between the house and the garage.

Mrs. Darnell, a frail lady who trembled when she moved but whose eyes were sharp with intelligence, was sitting in a wicker chair on the breezeway. "Lucien? You didn't tell me we were expecting guests today."

"They're from another agency, dear. They need to ask me a few questions. Gentlemen, please sit down."

Mrs Darnell got up carefully, using a cane with four little legs at its end. "Would you boys like some iced tea?"

Epps replied, "Thank you, ma'am, but we just came from lunch."

Sam also politely declined. The elderly lady smiled. "If you'll excuse me, I'll leave you to your conversation." She went back into the house. Presently they heard glassware clink softly; apparently she had decided to have some of the tea.

Darnell asked, "What's all this about?"

"The Sectors have all been placed under NEST jurisdiction, but S10 seems to have been... misplaced...somehow. According to our records, you were the last contact that anyone had with Helix, almost thirty years ago. The Director hoped you would be able to help us locate him."

"What did you say your security clearance was again?"

They allowed Darnell to study their ID again. "I'm sorry, but that information is above your clearance level. I'm afraid you'll have to get the Director to cut me an order before I can read you in."

Epps said, "Wait, are you kidding? This is thirty-year-old information, and you know that we're here on Director Mearing's orders."

The old man replied, "Young man, I wasn't aware that the non-disclosure forms I signed when I retired had a statute of limitations on them. Get me that authorization, and I'll be glad to tell you everything I know. But until then, I'm sorry, I can't help you."

Out in the car, they called Mearing, who said that she could have the necessary authorization faxed to their hotel. Sam shrugged, and put the SUV in gear. "Yet another paper chase," he said.

Epps laughed, and dug out his cell phone to call the boss.

-Sidhe Chronicles-

The proving ground was busy that day. Lennox and one of the new fire teams had been sparring with Barricade, who was giving them the best look at 'Con tactics that they'd ever had, while the fact that they were using nothing more lethal than paintballs gave him a chance to get out and move in spite of his weakened condition.

Ratchet encouraged that. The micro-injuries that resulted from use encouraged healing nanites to do their thing, building up the exercised parts of the frame so that it was stronger than before. He had been extremely startled to find out that the exact same process occurred in humans, who lifted weights to break down muscle fiber, with the result that it rebuilt itself and increased its strength.

Sideswipe was keeping an eye on them as he and his brother sparred. Barricade was learning a new style, closer to Sides' own, depending more on speed and agility than the strength he no longer possessed. Occasionally, Sides pinged the former 'Con to correct his technique—all the while holding Sunstreaker at bay. Barricade was practicing with holographic blades, in order to eliminate any chance of a training accident that could easily kill one of the humans. Sideswipe, an acknowledged master of the dual-blade style, and Optimus were the only ones who sparred with live steel in the mix—and then only when their opponents themselves were experienced enough to be trusted at that level.

Outside of the other Cybertronians at the base, that list included only Diarwen, and about a quarter of the NEST troops.

Tyler was running the obstacle course with another group of NEST agents. A few hundred feet away, S5 was on the firing line. No one was really watching them, because all of them except Alan Winters were experienced shooters, and they were capable of bringing him along.

Behind them, Arag was teaching Marine Corps unarmed combat to several women, including Hunt, Delano and the Ellsworth twins from S11, Arag's S13 teammate Adele Hempstead, Dr. Steele and Major Skylar from S8, and S9's Stansfield and Wilcox. Skylar had reported as ordered, and quickly graduated to assisting Arag in teaching the class. The others were of widely varying ages and fitness levels. In fact, the only female not out there was Baker from S5, who remained with her own team.

Arag was big enough to intimidate almost anyone, but Skylar had quickly shown the rest that it was very possible for a 5'6" woman to take down a man almost twice her height—in fact, that great a difference in height could be an advantage for the smaller combatant who knew how to make proper use of it.

But that wasn't precisely what Arag was teaching them. He was showing them how to fight off and escape from a mugger or rapist. Skylar was closer to the right size for that.

When Baker shot her second perfect score while Lennox' team was taking a break for some water, Lennox tapped her shoulder. "You can't do any better than two perfect scores in a row. Go over there and help Arag and Skylar with some of those greenhorns."

Not happy about being split up from her teammates, Baker frowned at him, but said, "Yes, sir," and sprinted over to the self-defense class to offer her services.

In the shade of the ammo shed, Braithwaite was giving an impromptu lecture to Collins, Emory, Millhouse, Young, and Schuster about some of the signs they might find at the scene of a real occult crime, as opposed to a murder committed by amateurs or wannabees with no real ability.

Lennox figured it was a good thing that Braithwaite seemed to attract mostly the eggheads. He wasn't sure how the Englishman had managed to make a discussion of ritual murder dry and boring, but he had.

Nathan was watching the self-defense class, with special regard for the Ellsworth twins. Lennox had noticed them, as well. It would have been difficult not to: they were a couple of barely-legal blonde twins whose military-issue PT tees and shorts were at least a couple of sizes too small. And he was pretty sure that staring at them would get a man arrested anywhere south of the Mason-Dixon line.

He sternly reminded himself that he was too old and too married to be noticing leggy coeds, and started to collect his fire team and get back to their sparring session. Fig was cursing a jammed paintball gun, he stopped to see if he could help clear the jam.

As a result, he had his back turned when some kind of kerfuffle got started at the self-defense class. Baker let out an outraged yell, and there was some kind of muffled boom. Nathan yelled in pain. There was a crack of energy, accompanied by a louder boom, and Baker was knocked several feet through the air to land on her ass between Lennox and the rest of her team.

That cleared the benches. Tyler climbed the obstacle course fence and hit the ground running, tackled Treadwell before he could jump Braithwaite. Arag blocked Darlington and Pritchart while Adele saw to Nathan, and Winters helped Baker up.

Lennox bellowed, "All of you, stand down! I SAID STAND DOWN! What the hell was that all about?"

That started a schoolyard squabble in which Baker accused Nathan of improperly staring at her.

Nathan rubbed his head. "My dear woman, I most certainly was not looking at you at all. My attention was entirely elsewhere."

The Ellsworth twins giggled. Then Lennox glared at them, whereupon their levity died a swift and unnatural death.

Will demanded, "Is anyone hurt?"

Nathan said, "Only my dignity, Colonel."

"Baker?"

She glared at Braithwaite. "My granny hits harder than that old man," she said.

"The next time you people decide to get in a brawl, I'll give you something to fight about! Now get back to work! Stoughton, find something to do before I get you a job! Baker, report to medbay and get a release from Parker; you must have flown ten feet. Then I need a written report from you. Braithwaite, you too."

They all scrambled to obey.

Lennox told Hunt quietly, "Those Ellsworth kids are causing a disruption. I want you to have a talk with them about professional dress and behavior. I don't know how their PT uniforms turned out two sizes smaller than everyone else's but I want that corrected by tomorrow."

Hunt bristled at the implied accusation—she had adopted the twins after their father had been killed on a mission—but she bit out an angry, "Yes, sir."

Lennox growled under his breath about babysittin' fraggin' civilians.

Two hours later, on the firing range, Ironhide laughed at him.

Lennox said, "Don't you start on me. You got the Little Twins. Hell, _both_ set of twins."

"You're just lucky Skids and Mudflap were out at the other end of the proving grounds when the fight started," Ironhide told him.

"Yeah, thank the Lord for small favors," he said. "I'm one more screw-up away from sending S5 home. It's either them or S13, and we know we can work with S13."

Ironhide made a noise of agreement. He hadn't been there to see the fight break out, but he had been military long enough to know that when two close-knit teams like that started a feud, you usually did have to send one of them elsewhere before the rest of the garrison started choosing sides. It was one reason why the Wreckers kept to themselves. He could work with them, but if they were around too much, they'd be into it with Sides and Sunstreaker before too long. Now, if Kup were still here, it would be different. He always had been able to keep them in line.

Too bad, mused 'Hide, that he couldn't sic Kup onto the two human teams. Now that would be a sight to see.

-Sidhe Chronicles-

Late that evening, Jazz was studying some web pages that Diarwen had recommended when Mirage reported in.

::How's it goin'?::

::We have the medical examiner's report. I have scanned it all. May I send you the file?::

::Shoot.::

Jazz copied the file, and, when the file both scanned clean and matched the check-sum that Mirage gave him, opened it. They took no chances, not after the time Soundwave had intercepted a transmitted file and inserted a virus into it.

Jazz was a decent field medic—any scout had to be—but he didn't know what he was reading, especially since it concerned humans. ::Thanks, Raj. Ah'll get Ratchet and Parker to take a look at this, maybe they can make sense out of it.::

::_Si, paisan. _The humans need to rest. They have been canvassing all the surrounding businesses in the industrial park all day today.::

::Got anything?::

::No one noticed anything odd, at least not that they will admit to,:: Mirage replied. ::I was not able to ask any questions myself—that would have been a circus—but I was able to scan a few of the people that the humans were speaking to. Nothing indicated to me that they were lying, so it seems there truly was nothing out of the ordinary at Premium Software until the murders took place.::

::This is a weird one,:: Jazz said. ::Let me know if anything else comes up."

::I will. Tell me if Ratchet or Dr. Parker have any theories.::

::Sure thing. Catch ya later.::

Mirage laughed, ::Not if I catch you first!:: And dropped the connection. Jazz grinned, then pinged Ratchet and messaged Dr. Parker's phone.

Parker was busy examining Baker, who was fine except for a bruised behind. Humiliated, she pulled up her PT shorts and escaped medbay to write her report of the incident.

Parker shook her head and laughed a little at these stupid kids who thought if they started a fight and got knocked on their butt, it somehow shouldn't bruise just like any other body part. She picked up her data pad and coffee cup, and went to spec ops to find out what Jazz needed.

Ratchet was already there. He bent over to offer his servo to his counterpart and lifted her to the tabletop. She said, "Sorry to keep you waiting, I had a patient."

"No problemo," Jazz replied.

"What have you got?"

"Raj sent the ME's report."

"May I have a copy, please?"

Jazz sent it to her datapad and she flipped through it to get to the examination of the first victim's skull. They were all interested in what the forehead burns might signify.

Ratchet was looking at it too, but he wasn't sure what he was seeing. Oh, the burnt-out neurons were obvious enough, but what could have caused such a thing- "Jazz, do you know if they examined the room where these victims were found? Was there any evidence of fire or electrical damage anywhere?"

Jazz said, "None was reported, though I'm assumin' that it would have been. But the contact pads were never found. The killer must have taken them with him."

Parker said, "That makes sense. It's pretty dumb to leave a murder weapon lying around. You know, I thought I'd seen every kind of head trauma there was when I was in Iraq, but this has me stumped. All I can tell you is that it looks electrical—but if they were electrocuted, we should see more evidence of that, and I'm not. Electrocution usually kills by stopping the heart. That isn't what happened here."

Ratchet said, "No, there doesn't seem to be any physical damage anywhere other than the head itself—but that is quite severe."

"Wait," Jazz said. "Look at th' secretary's autopsy report, th' one fer Tabitha Pierson. There are bruises on her arms and shoulders, an' the ME says it's consistent with bein' forced into a chair."

They read through the other reports. Parker said, "The same thing is true of the maintenance man, McInerney."

Ratchet said, "Yet there was little disturbance around the programmers—nothing that cannot be explained by a dead body falling."

Jazz said, "So they were workin' at their stations and somethin' got 'em by surprise. Nobody got up and tried to run or fight. Then somebody went and got the maintenance man and the secretary, forced 'em into their chairs—an' killed them to get rid of witnesses?" It wouldn't be the first time he had seen people fall over dead, never having known what hit them, but none of those situations seemed to fit the evidence in this case.

Parker said, "I concur, that seems to be the most likely scenario right now. Ratchet, if we consider all the post-mortems, what do the bodies have in common?"

"The burn damage is more extensive below the surface of the skin. The point of damage was not the contact pads themselves, but within the brain. The heat that caused this originated within the nerve fibers. Brain damage is consistent and death was likely instantaneous." The medic flipped through the report, added, "The skulls are all spiderweb-cracked from a steep heat gradient, so the heat was both sudden and intense. There are no other indications of physical trauma on any of the eight technicians."

Jazz said, "Look at those people's faces, Ratch. Whatever killed them wasn't instantaneous, they look terrified."

Ratchet said, "I can accept that they were aware that they were in danger, but the death blow itself was sudden and catastrophic. They would have died before they had time to process nerve signals as pain."

Parker shook her head. "I have no idea what could have done this. Why don't we set up a meeting for tomorrow morning and pull Sector 8 in on it? Solving medical mysteries is what they do."

-Sidhe Chronicles-

Sam and Epps collected the fax containing the orders for Darnell to talk to them "about the matter in question."

As they left the motel office and started to cross the lot to the SUV, Sam suddenly felt a sharp pain in his head, and became quite dizzy. He caught himself on the wrought-iron post that held up the second floor walkway.

"What's the matter?" Epps asked.

"I don't know. It must be the heat, I guess. Felt like something hit me right in the head."

"You OK now?"

"Yeah. It's gone now. Weird."

"Get yourself checked out. You got knocked around a lot in that fight with Screamer, and you hit your head a couple of times. Head injuries are funny, you can think you're fine but problems can turn up months later."

"I'll do that," Sam said.

They drove back to the community, went through the same rigamarole with a different, equally suspicious gate guard, and parked in front of 108 Orange Blossom Road.

Everything was quiet. They knocked a couple of times, and got no answer.

They went around to the breezeway. Epps banged harder and called, "Mr. Darnell! We have that authorization. Open the door, please."

Sam shook the screen door to the breezeway and found it securely locked. "The car's still here. I guess they could have gone out for a walk or something."

"They wouldn't do that right now. Not until it cools off," Epps said.

While Sam got out his phone to call Darnell, Epps looked through the window.

"Sam."

"What?"

"Sam, I see them, they're in the living room."

Sam looked. Judging from the bloodstains, both had been shot.

By the time Sam reached that conclusion, Epps had kicked in the front door. Both the Darnells were dead, and the scene looked like a classic murder-suicide. The weapon? A silenced pistol that was still in Darnell's hand.

Sam picked up a cell phone that was lying near Darnell.

Epps started to check the nearby writing desk for a suicide note, but there was nothing on top. An instinct honed in Iraq caused him to look under it before opening any of the drawers, and what he found there made him shout, "Sam, _run!"_

He gave the kid a shove and they ran for the front door.

They had barely cleared the front step when the house exploded.

Stunned by the blast, they were thrown another few feet from the house, and were still lying on the grass when the neighbors rushed in. They couldn't hear the people who asked anxiously, helping them up, "Are you all right?"

The fire department arrived a very few minutes later, and not long after that the county sheriff, then almost immediately the place was full of no-nonsense people in dark suits and sunglasses.

By then, Sam and Epps' hearing was coming back. The paramedics wanted to take the two to the emergency room, but when they refused, one of the retirees identified himself as a doctor and brought them to his house.

Sam called Mearing on his cell phone, and she asked to talk to the agent in charge. When the agent returned the phone, Mearing told Sam to give him a statement, ordering Sam and Epps to tell him everything they saw from the time they arrived at the house until the explosion. It was unspoken but clear that they were not to mention Helix.

The agent seemed to understand that, and did not question them about the nature of their investigation. There would be calls made later among people with higher pay grades than their own or the agent's. Right now, it was this particular agent's job to ensure that Darnell had in fact shot his wife and then himself, and that nothing more, either involving these two or without them, had gone down.

"You say the gun was there?"

"It was in Darnell's left hand," Sam replied. "They were holding each other's right."

"He was a lefty," the doctor confirmed. "Agent, could I speak to you in private on a matter of patient confidentiality? Excuse us, fellas."

They sat still while the doctor and the agent went in the kitchen and shut the door, holding a brief conversation behind it before they returned.

"OK, you're staying at the airport Days Inn, right?" the agent asked.

"Yes, sir," Sam answered.

"You both refused medical care? It's safer to get yourselves checked out."

The doctor said, "I have to agree with that, boys. I saw you go flying off the front step."

Epps said, "We hit the grass, so I don't think it was that bad, but if either of us takes a turn for the worse during the night, we'll go to the ER."

"I'll have to ask you to stay here for a few days."

"We can do that unless our director orders us to leave. If that happens you'll have to take it up with her," Sam replied.

"Who is that?"

"Charlotte Mearing, sir."

"Oh, OK. You'd better report to her if you haven't already."

"We have," Epps assured him. He wouldn't admit being afraid of these people—but he and Sam were on their own a long way from home. It was best that the local Powers That Be were aware that Mearing was in the loop.

They drove back to the hotel. Showers and clean clothes quickly followed; while Bobby was taking his turn in the bathroom Sam got out his phone to call Mearing and let her know what had happened with the agent who had questioned them. In doing so he found the phone he had picked up at the Darnells' right before the explosion.

He switched it on, but it had locked. He turned it back off, Bumblebee or Jazz could crack a cell phone easily but he had no idea how to do that. Too many wrong guesses would probably erase the phone.

Mearing first wanted to ascertain that they were unharmed, then for each of them to make a full verbal report. Next she ordered them to the ER to get checked out, after telling them in no uncertain terms that they were idiots not to go in the ambulance in the first place. Sam begged her not to let Carly find out about the explosion, then they looked longingly at their beds and drove to the nearest hospital to spend the evening and late into the night among the drunks, druggies, and squalling kids who made up the usual clientele.

End Part 6


	7. Chapter 7

Disclaimers in Part 1

It wouldn't be a Vegas bar if it didn't have a row of slot machines. This was true even of Hanratty's Pub, a bit of old Dublin transplanted to the end of the Vegas Strip. Diarwen smiled as she tuned her harp. Tonight Hanratty's was hosting a Bard's Battle, and she was one of five who had signed up for the opportunity to win a generous pot, and to share the craic—that is, exchange the news and gossip, relax, and raise a pint or three with other bards. The craic was the most important—there were few true bards in the American southwest, and those who did live here were distant from one another. She had never before met any of the others who were in attendance.

She tapped the small earpiece that she was wearing to send a ping. Optimus replied, "Yes, Diarwen?"

She said, "Sound check?" Both Optimus, and the fellow in the sound booth, assured her that they could hear her fine.

A crowd began to gather as the local favorite, a young fellow named Dustin who worked at the pub, started off the first set. Diarwen ordered a Murphy's and sipped it as she listened. The young fellow was extremely talented, and needed only a little more experience.

An old man wearing a lot of Navajo silver set a guitar case down and ordered a whiskey. "Kid isn't bad," he commented.

Diarwen nodded. "Diarwen ni Gilthanel."

"Aditsan O'Leary," he replied, and they shook hands. "Don't recall seeing you here before."

"I am new in town. Yourself?"

"Well, I live in the Navajo Nation, but I come here whenever I'm in town. Navajo mother, Irish dad, and I married a Navaho lady," he grinned. "You sound like you're from the old country."

"Yes, as a matter of fact I just returned from a visit there."

"Brought some new music with you, I hope."

"That I did, a ballad I learned in Dublin."

Diarwen was called up for her first set. The pub was crowded, some of them here for the music, others vacationers who had wandered in from the Strip. Diarwen entertained both groups with a couple of upbeat dance numbers and "The Rattlin' Bog." She'd save the ballad for later.

After she finished the last chorus, she saw some people in NEST jackets come in, and Parker was among them. She surrendered the stage to Aditsan and joined them. Parker sat with her, while the rest crowded into the next booth.

"I do not mean to break up your evening out-"

"Oh, I didn't come with them, we just met on the sidewalk outside. I don't think they're staying here very long. What is going on here?"

"This is a Battle of the Bards. I hope you like Celtic music!"

"I like what I've heard so far," Parker smiled.

"I'm glad to see you somewhere besides medbay," Diarwen said.

"Well, when I'm not working, I'm usually with my son, but he has a play date with Annabelle Lennox, and Sarah said he could sleep over if I'm late—or if I have a few."

"That's good of her."

"I don't know what we'd do without her and Chromia. They keep us all sane."

"Truth in that!" Diarwen said. "What are you having?"

"What have you got?"

"This is a Murphy's stout. Do you like Guiness?"

"Sometimes, yes."

"Murphy's is similar."

"I'll try one."

Diarwen signaled the waitress and said, "Another pint of Murphy's, please, and one for my friend as well."

"Comin' right up."

Diarwen said to Parker, "I did not know you had a son."

"Johnny's just turned five. I can't believe he's going to be starting kindergarten in a couple of weeks."

"They are so cute at that age, and it goes by so quickly."

"Doesn't it, though. It feels like only yesterday I had him."

Diarwen asked, "Do you have a picture? I am sure I must have seen him around the base."

Parker not only had "a picture," she had a brag book full of adorability that would undoubtedly prove to be the bane of the poor boy's existence in ten or so more years.

Diarwen carefully did not ask about the boy's father. Parker did not wear a ring, there was no father in any of the pictures, and Diarwen knew the military life was very hard on marriages.

Optimus' voice came over her earpiece, "Perhaps you should tell Dr. Parker that I am listening."

Diarwen said, "Ah, yes! Dr. Parker, you should know I have this headset microphone turned on so that Optimus can hear the music."

"That works! Good evening, sir."

They sat for a while, listening to Aditsan's set, and then to a quartet of fellows in kilts whose role models seemed to be Celtic Thunder.

Diarwen said, "If you do not mind me saying, this does not seem to be your preference in entertainment."

"Oh, no, it isn't that. I'm trying to figure out something from work. Did you know we got the medical examiner's report from Oregon today?"

"No, I did not. I take it that the findings were not as one might expect?"

"I don't know what the findings are." Parker bought them another round, and once the waitress had left, she described the injuries found on the corpses, one professional to another. "I don't know what to make of it."

Diarwen sipped her stout. "I...might. It sounds like one style of psychic combat. Victims of psychic combat sometimes appear to have died of exhaustion. I gather this is not that?"

Parker shook her head. "We've set up a medical conference for tomorrow morning. You should be there."

"I have no qualifications as a healer here."

"That isn't the point."

"I do not know what more I could contribute other than to say what I have said. If I am right, you know what you are up against. If I am wrong, then I know no more than anyone else what could do such a thing."

"I have just officially summoned you to that meeting. I'll fill out the paperwork on the fly, later. –Could you defend yourself against an attack like that?"

"Oh, aye. There are few limitations to defense. I would not have to see an attack coming, and probably no one could attack me while I was unaware, since I have my wards set so that any such attempt would wake me even from a deep sleep. The people in Oregon, however, were not trained as I am, and had not my millennia of practice. They would have been taken unaware, possibly knowing that they were being attacked but nothing more before…the attacker prevailed. Counterattacking, however, might prove problematic."

Parker had a slug of Murphy's. "That's nice stuff," she said, turning the glass to catch the light. "Tell me why a counterattack would prove problematic."

"For one thing, it is more complicated. I know exactly one truly effective attack which does not require magic—and that is the one which I am teaching Jazz. It is highly effective when it is a surprise, less so in a protracted psychic duel. It might be that this killer is accustomed to attacking from ambush and striking down his prey before they have a chance to mount a defense. He may be unskilled in actual psychic combat. That would give me the advantage of experience. Against a seasoned psychic warrior, however, my current limitations would prove a serious disadvantage."

"I see. I admit that I am curious as to what you are teaching Jazz, actually. Can you show me?"

Thus, Diarwen spent the time until she was next called on stage showing Parker how to play Invisible Basketball, and what could be accomplished with the air inside the basketball, so to speak.

When she was called to the stage, the Sidhe found it very hard to keep the smile from her voice during the ballad while she could see Parker continuing to play Invisible Basketball with herself.

-Sidhe Chronicles-

Within the server farm, Soundwave allowed himself a thrill of triumph. For weeks, he had been isolated from other Decepticons by a lack of communications. At last, Lugnut had taken to the Internet, cautiously, using a very old code phrase as a screen name.

Soundwave had to be cautious around Lugnut. He was intransigent once he got an idea into his processor, and unshakably loyal to Megatron. Soundwave's own loyalty had been beyond reproach, but it was the Decepticon way to be aware of all possible means of advancement, including betraying and replacing one's superior. That meant that the strongest and most capable led. To coddle the weak, as the Autobots did, weakened the whole by allowing individuals to remain in positions of power for which they were unsuited. Lugnut, however, was one of those useful but dangerous followers who carried loyalty to the point of worship.

Blitzwing was not competent on his own, being too likely to switch from his logical personality to the less stable ones at any time. It was only the influence of his trinemate that kept him steady enough to be useful. The two of them together could be highly effective, but they would cooperate with Soundwave only as long as they believed he was working to avenge Megatron.

The only thing that could make the whole ridiculous situation more complicated would be the arrival of Strika, Lugnut's mate and the third of their trine. She was as loyal to Megatron as Lugnut, but she had her own ambitions. Back on Cybertron, those had been to unseat Starscream as their lord's second—and as Winglord of Vos.

Starscream had been aware of her designs on his position, but her trine had been too useful to Megatron for him to permit his scheming Air Commander to have her killed.

Soundwave had run several simulations substituting Strika for Soundwave in Chicago. All of them had resulted in a decisive Decepticon victory.

He had no doubt that, if she still lived, she was drawing all the surviving Seekers that she could find to her banner. When she arrived on Earth, she would be a rival, and Lugnut and Blitzwing would abandon Soundwave for her without a second thought. It might be necessary for him to take the same position with her as he had with Megatron—the loyal consigliere, and potentially, the power behind the throne.

Her return might be vorns away, though—or she might be deactivated. She and Lugnut had not been sparkmates, only a very close long-term mated pair. They had no way of knowing if she still lived. And even if she did, if Soundwave could consolidate his power here, Strika might be content with her old ambitions to replace Starscream as Winglord and Air Commander. To keep the peace among his troops, Soundwave would be content to rule in Lord Megatron's memory—as long as he ruled.

For now, though, he had more immediate concerns. They were limited in travel by the web of energon detectors which the humans had put into place, not only on highways but also at major airports.

Soundwave had found one apparent limitation to that web. It did not extend to smaller airports, often frequented only by private pilots, small charters and freight carriers. Soundwave was most interested in the cargo planes.

Lugnut and Blitzwing immediately objected. Lugnut yelled, ::Those things are unarmed!::

Soundwave replied, ::Have you forgotten that we are _Decepticons?_ I do not expect you to disarm yourselves—only to design your alt forms to appear so! Do you want to fly wherever you wish, with the Autobots and their human pets none the wiser, or will you be content to be leashed, and possibly denied the air perpetually?::

The freedom of the skies, to a Seeker, was like energon to a starving mech of any other frame class. ::Yeah, that's good thinkin', Soundwave. You always were a smart one.::

::I am arranging a base of operations for us at a small airport near here. Choose the smallest cargo aircraft that you can manage, given your frame size.::

Assured that they would obey, Soundwave ended the communication and then turned to his human minions.

They weren't Frenzy and Rumble. No one ever would be Frenzy and Rumble. But they were starting to be adequate substitutes, and entertaining pets at least.

Soundwave never should have allowed Frenzy to work with that traitor Barricade. He should have known what would happen.

"Eric Hasson," formerly James Smith, answered a service order in his queue, which took him to a far back corner of one of the server farm's many buildings.

One of the security guards, a fat, ill-tempered man named Herbert-something, yelled at him because his ID badge had flipped backwards. He turned it right side forward and apologized insincerely.

"What was that, ya little faggot?"

Now, "Hasson" wasn't gay, he was only pretending to be as a part of his cover. And he knew that there were a lot of conservative people around who acted like idiots whenever they thought they were within twenty feet of a homosexual. Still, the guy's tone of voice struck something primitive and Hasson's first impulse was to knock him on his ass. Instead he said, "It isn't contagious, you Neanderthal."

"What did you just call me, you pansy-boy?"

"A Ne-an-der-thal," he replied, dragging out the word, clenching his fist. "Look it up."

Whether it was because Hasson wouldn't back down to an obvious bully, or because said bully knew he'd be on the unemployment line if he got in a fight with someone he was harassing, Herbert growled and waved him on.

Hasson, for his part, started a little list, and Herbert's was the first name on it.

Server racks do not normally have monitors and keyboards. Those were on Hasson's work cart. He positioned the cart so that, if someone happened to walk by, they wouldn't be able to see the monitor screen. Then he plugged them in and typed, ::I'm here, what do you need?::

Words came up on the screen. ::I have contacted the others. I have created a shipping company and rented a hangar at the local airport. We need humans to staff it. Blitzwing's and Lugnut's holoforms will do, to a certain extent, but if we are going to pretend to be a business we must have employees.::

Hasson asked, ::Why pretend?::

::What do you mean?::

::If I were you, I'd hire people to run the business. They don't need to know about us. If you can keep the other Decepticons in line and make sure they don't let the employees get wind of anything, the business should pay for itself, and anyone who gets curious will find a legitimate business in operation. The fewer people who know about us, the better,:: Hasson replied.

Soundwave quickly sent out several Internet spiders to research that. ::Very good thinking, Hasson. There is something else that I would like for you to begin working on. The DNI headset is bulky and obvious, and cannot be used continuously. If you were to create an implantable version, it would allow you the same freedom of the Internet that I have. I also think that it might be possible for you to...influence, perhaps, those members of your species who are … less gifted … in the same way that I can influence some members of my own.::

Hasson said, ::An implantable version could be do-able. We've had some problems with human technology, but Cybertronian technology might make it possible.::

::What qualities in humans do you feel we should seek out? We do not want to repeat the situation at Premium Software.::

::No, definitely not. We don't want anyone who has committed a felony, that would draw attention. People who have one or two misdemeanors on their records might be good. They can't be too curious, which means they can't be too smart, and we don't want people with initiative. They have to be motivated by money, and know how to take orders. That will work for the cargo company.

::But we need to hire people to work another level below Silvers and me for your stuff. Cell leaders, so we'll have to choose them carefully. They're the only ones who have contact with either Silvers or myself—not both of us—and they don't need to know about you. Then we get them to recruit a cell of operatives. If those operatives get caught, they can identify only their cell leader. If you're right about being able to use the DNI to control people, though, once we get that up and running we'll be able to recruit all we want.::

::Of course I am correct about the DNI,:: Soundwave said. ::I will put some thought into what you have proposed.:: He terminated the conversation.

-Sidhe Chronicles-

In September, the daily highs at the base were still near a hundred every day, and it hit eighty by eight most mornings. Optimus and Jazz found it more pleasant to meet with Diarwen at six for lessons, Invisible Basketball for both, then sometimes, as this morning, Jazz hitched back to base with Chip after his session on the shooting range, and Optimus settled in with Diarwen to discuss matters of … not faith, and not belief. One did not need either when one carried the Matrix, nor when one dealt daily with Beings which existed, and which shared moments of benevolent attention with their worshiper.

So these were not discussions of faith or belief. Of deity, perhaps, Diarwen mused this morning as she'd done her Sword Dance, but neither she nor Optimus had need of faith or belief.

She sat in the shade of an outcropping of rock and accepted the bottle of water that Optimus unsubspaced for her. It was delightfully cold.

"How did you –?" she asked, holding it, cherishing the feel as much as she would the taste.

He smirked. "Froze it the night before."

She grinned at him, and applied it to her carotids. Wonderful.

Then she applied it to her inside. Even better.

"Aaaah. Thank you. You said," she said, capping the bottle and quirking an eyebrow at him, "that you had some questions."

"I do. The Goddess is both son and lover to the God. Isn't that incest?"

She spared a thought on what it had taken Optimus, a being from a race which reproduced (if you could call it that) asexually to be able to ask her that question. "Well, yes and no."

"Oh good. I do love a straight answer." He sat down beside her, in as much shade as the rock afforded him.

She smiled at him. "Yes because it is, if the mother-son relationship between them were the truth. You must remember that this awareness of the Goddess evolved during a time when humanity had not reached the level of sophisticated thought now available to it. To say that the God is both mate to and son of the Goddess was all they had in the way of expressing the truth: that without the Goddess, there would be no God. Without the God, there would still be a Goddess, but any expression of love She might make would not be toward living beings. She is boundless creation, but He is life, springing eternal from that creation, ephemeral where She is immortal."

"And that takes care of yes. What about no?"

"No because incest is not commonly practiced among humans, nor among animal species. Oh, a few individuals in every generation will practice it, but very few. It tends to breed itself out. Few societies do not actively condemn it. Only among royal bloodlines was it common." Diarwen had to stop to think a bit. "I believe," she said finally, "that He is Her son _and_ Her lover only because ancient humanity had no concepts to express Their relationship otherwise. They combine to make Life, in all its forms. Therefore, to humanity's early mind, they must be lovers. Yet He arises from Her, so they must be Son and Mother." She paused. "You must know also, Optimus, that any written records humanity has of the Goddess and Her Son were written down by those politically inimical to that belief. The humans may have known a better way to put it, may have had the correct information, but those who recorded it chose the worst possible way to express it, for political reasons."

He'd have to think about that, he knew. "Very well. I wish to further discuss Mabon, while we are out here together."

"Fire away," she said, and had some more water.

"Why is it that some pagans see it as 'the beginning of sorrow'? They don't brand Ostara as 'the beginning of joy.'"

"No, that is Imbolc. At Mabon, as at Ostara, the sun and moon are balanced in their influence. The ancients had no way of knowing that summer with its bounty would always recur, so I imagine that they approached Ostara in hopes of that. At Mabon, it's always true that the days are growing observably shorter, but on that holiday day and night balance. After that, the days continue to shorten, and it is confirmed that winter comes. Three days after Yule, on the other hand, the days have already been observed to be longer. Summer is welcome, winter with its hardships is not. That may be the only difference between them."

"That would be true only in the Northern hemisphere, though."

"Yes, but that is where modern paganism developed. Many pagans in the Southern hemisphere do celebrate the Sabbats at the proper time for their seasons—it is nearly Ostara by their reckoning."

He filed that away. "The other question I had concerned quarter- and cross-quarter days."

"Ah! Well, let me give you some information first, and we shall see where that leads us. Those are two differing systems, mashed together. Tribes in the British Isles celebrated the solstices and equinoxes. Germanic tribes in Europe celebrated the days half-way between them."

"You have already told me that."

"Have I? Well, accessing files is less random than accessing organic memory, my friend."

"Indeed," he said dryly.

She grinned. "The other source of these two systems is the British banking industry."

"How so?"

"Funds kept in trust for widows, orphans, and dependent children were paid out on quarter-days, ninety days apart. It's really quite difficult to budget for two months in advance, so instead of paying monthly, for a time the funds would have been distributed on the quarter and cross-quarter days."

"Would that have had any influence on magical practice?"

"None, although if you are an illiterate peasant, it's a pleasant way of marking time. The other members of your village may have more disposable income around this time, and so you are likely to stockpile salable goods to coincide with the expansion of the market at those dates."

"Thank you. Surprising creatures, these humans." He stood, and held out his hand to her. "Are you ready to go back?"

"Aye, that I am," she said, and stepped into his palm, their fields meshing.

-Sidhe Chronicles-

Meanwhile, Lennox was on the phone with Mearing. It was 0600 hours on the base, 0900 in DC—the beginning of both their work days. They were hashing out the situation with S5 and S13 which had cropped up at the proving grounds yesterday.

Mearing asked, "What exactly happened? Were you there to see it?"

"I was there to _hear_ it, but I had my back turned. I heard Baker cuss at Stoughton, then there were two cracks, Stoughton yelled 'Ouch,' and Baker went flying. When I turned around, Tyler came over the obstacle course fence and tackled Treadwell before he could jump Braithwaite. Arag was keeping Darlington and Pritchart out of the fight. Hempstead and Winters were assisting Stoughton and Baker, respectively. I ordered everyone to stand down at that point, sir, and they did."

"So Baker started the fight. Why did she do that?"

"She thought Stoughton was, er, improperly staring at her."

"O-kay...was he?"

"I think he was actually staring at the S11 twins, sir, and the two of them did not consider it improper. Dr. Hunt may have had a different opinion."

"Good Lord preserve us from horny teenagers. They do know Stoughton is a ghost, don't they?"

"I believe they are aware of that, Director."

"Do you ever feel more like the principal of a middle school than a commanding officer?"

"There's a difference, sir?"

Both of them laughed. Mearing said, "I'll call Braithwaite, you get Treadwell's side of it, then call me back in an hour."

Lennox said, "Yes, sir," hung up, eyed the stack of paperwork and data pads waiting in his in-box, and told his aide, "Tell A.D. Treadwell I need to see him immediately after breakfast, and inform him and A.D. Braithwaite also that there's been a change of schedule. S5 will attend CMO Ratchet's Bots 101 lecture this morning, and they'll have the firing range at 1900 hours. S9 will have the firing range this morning and the lecture this evening. And have the galley send me black coffee and whatever kind of danish they have."

"Yes, sir. What size coffee?"

"Do they have gallon jugs?"

His aide grinned. "I'll find out, sir."

Lennox pulled the top paper off the stack and got to work.

He had reduced the in-box overload considerably and significantly lowered the level on his quart of coffee (the largest dose the galley would provide without, his aide reported, a prescription) by the time Treadwell arrived twenty minutes later.

Treadwell stood at attention in front of his desk, which at first puzzled Lennox because he hadn't been in the military. But then Lennox remembered a 20-year reunion T-shirt the man had been wearing the other evening that said "St. Ignatius High School."

You could take the kid out of parochial school but you couldn't take parochial school out of the kid.

Lennox hadn't been to parochial school, but he could channel the toughest teacher he'd ever had, his high school football coach. He said, "Have a seat, Mr. Treadwell."

"Sir, about yesterday, I'd like to apologize on behalf of my team. There was no excuse for getting into a fight, sir."

"The next time Baker feels that someone is harassing her, we have a procedure in place for reporting and dealing with that." Lennox pushed a sheet of paper across the desk. "Please make sure that your team is aware of that procedure."

"Yes, sir," Treadwell said. "Will that be all, sir?"

"Not quite. This is only one example of continuing tension between your team and S13. It is affecting unit cohesiveness. Before I decide what to do about that, I'd like to hear your take on what the problem is."

Treadwell gave him a suspicious look, and Lennox could understand that. The New Yorker had to be wondering if the Ranger really wanted to hear what he had to say, or if he was simply going through the motions before reassigning S5. He took the question on face value and replied, "It's a question of...perspective, sir. Sector 5's job is to deal with supernatural menaces. S13 wants to study the damn things. Talk to them. That's all well and good—but not when it's something that can kill people. Take this Sufri incident. We should have been called in on that."

"And that's the main reason the Sectors have all been brought into the same agency, so that we can share our expertise. Believe me, if your team had been available to me during that incident, I would have called you in—if I thought you and S13 could work the case together without killing each other."

"With respect, sir, it's hard to work a case with people who are just as likely to be on the other side of the fight. You got a Fomor, you got a witch and a warlock, you got a ghost. There's only one guy on the whole team whose loyalty is to the United States, and he could be compromised."

"OK. I'm trying to give you a fair hearing, but after that statement, you're going to have to talk fast to convince me not to load your asses on the next transport out of here," Lennox snapped.

"Well, if you don't want to hear the truth, maybe that's the best thing you could do," Treadwell replied.

"And that truth is? Because I've worked with S13, and I watched them all put their lives on the line alongside the rest of us to put Sufri down. If you're accusing them of disloyalty to the United States, those are fighting words. Put up or shut up."

"OK. You know there are different kinds of witches, right? Hempstead is one of those tree-hugger new age types, they're really pretty harmless for the most part because they believe anything they do boomerangs three times. They do tend to hate Christians."

"Considering your ancestors burned theirs at the stake, that would be understandable. But Hempstead isn't in my office telling me what bastards Christians are," Lennox pointed out.

"I'd point out their ancestors threw mine to the lions a long time before that," Treadwell replied. "But that isn't the point. What I'm getting at is, Braithwaite isn't a new-ager. His kind are interested in power, and they'll take it from any source they can without getting eaten. I've seen them collect all kinds of things—artifacts, books, creatures—to study, regardless of the danger to themselves or their neighbors. And they don't have the same...moral brakes...that the new-agers do. Eventually they over-reach and take out a city block—and we're the ones who clean up their mess. Have you seen S5's reports?"

"I have."

"Then you know about that guy in New England who built a golem in his garage. I had to have the Navy shell that thing to stop it—after it killed him and six other people. Remember the flap that caused?"

Lennox grinned. "You mean that accidental shot that blew up a garage? I don't remember the news getting hold of seven people being killed."

"We managed to pass it off as a head-on collision caused when one driver got scared by the explosion and went left of center. The reporters were more interested in whether or not to blame the president for the misfire than in the people who were killed."

"That figures. OK, let's assume you have a point in that some people who practice Braithwaite's style of magic can be irresponsible, and some of Hempstead's fellow witches can be prejudiced against Christians. You haven't shown me a shred of evidence that either of those things are true of the people we presently have on this base. But you did refer to A.D. Braithwaite by a term that they find offensive. A warlock is not a male witch. A warlock is an oath-breaker, a backstabber."

"So noted."

"Now, let's move on to Arag. That man served his country with honor in the United States Marine Corps from Vietnam to the Gulf War. He was decorated for bravery three separate times. After he retired from the Corps, he moved on to S13 and has continued to serve with honor. Now you listen to me and you listen good, there's someone on this base who has every reason to refer to him in racial terms, and I wouldn't take that from her if she did. I'm sure as fuckin' hell not taking it from you."

"Yes, sir."

"I want to know how this crap started in the first place."

"It was in Boston, when I was still 2iC of my team. We were up there investigating a string of what we thought were ritual homicides, you remember that case, it was all over the news. We suspected a bunch of juvenile wannabee Satanists. S13 was already up there. The killers were vampires; an old one turned a pack of high school kids and sent them out to hunt for him. S13 was trying to study those kids instead of tracking them back to the master. Two more people were killed before we got there and staked the vampires. Like I said. It's all about what they can learn. I don't know what Braithwaite thought he was going to learn about vampires! The victim is already dead, you can't save them—all you can do is kill the demon that's possessing their body. You can't waste time studying things when people are dying!"

Lennox nodded. "I'll look into this. In the meanwhile, I don't want any more incidents like yesterday. You and your team are to stay clear of S13. That's an order."

"Yes, sir. With all due respect, sir, if they don't stay clear of us, what are we supposed to do then?"

Lennox growled, "They'll stay clear of you. I'll make sure of that."

-Sidhe Chronicles-

While Lennox read Treadwell the riot act, Mearing had Braithwaite on the phone. "I understand your team had a little trouble yesterday."

"Yes, Director. I would like to apologize for that."

"What the hell happened?"

"Mr. Stoughton was, shall we say, distracted. Miss Baker assumed that she was the distraction, and took offense. She attacked Mr. Stoughton without provocation. I defended my teammate. Mr. Tyler then prevented Mr. Treadwell from attacking me. At that point, Colonel Lennox restored order."

As that agreed with Lennox' account, more or less, Mearing accepted it. "I need to know what the problem is."

"The—problem—is that S5 are a collection of cowboys and hooligans who think blowing things up is the preferred solution to every problem! If they're investigating anyone who is not a human Christian, their attitude is to kill them all and let God sort it out. They don't care what the collateral damage is, or that it might be possible to find a peaceful resolution to the situation. Anyone who doesn't fit their criteria for a proper American is automatically the enemy."

"Yet they've done a lot of good."

"I'm not saying there aren't enemies out there. I am saying, they don't bother to find out first before they start firing away like the gunfight at the OK corral! We cannot live in blinders. We cannot judge who is worthy of respect, of life, by species or religion. And we cannot decide what information is worthy of study and preservation by what has gained the approval of any specific religion. There is a reason why we have a First Amendment, Director. We shouldn't still be fighting these battles in this day and age. We ought to be past that."

Mearing said, "While all that's true, I don't know what it has to do with this brawl yesterday. I don't want a repeat of that."

"I must point out that they attacked us."

"Based upon a misunderstanding. Let it go."

"I've had words with Mr. Stoughton. We will attempt to avoid Mr. Treadwell and his people as much as possible, and we will not provoke them. However, I will not allow my agents to be attacked without taking action, Director."

"They'll leave you alone, Mr. Braithwaite, I'll see to that."

"Thank you, Director."

Jazz, who never let anyone know he did so, had eavesdropped on both conversations. Primus help anyone on either team who stepped over the line from now on, he thought. Having both Mearing _and _Lennox on your aft was probably not survivable.

End Part 7


	8. Chapter 8

Disclaimers in Part 1

Optimus arrived at the proving grounds later that morning, on Ratchet's orders to "get away from your Pit-be-damned desk and do something before you freeze up in a sitting position!"

One day, Ratchet and Diarwen were going to settle their disagreement. And after that, he would have both of them nannying him.

The Prime put that off for future consideration. Ironhide was already out there, testing modifications to one of his cannons. A huge plume of smoke marked the site of the last detonation—he had felt the shock wave through his tires on his way out here. Ironhide was not satisfied with the results. He had extruded a couple of tools from the digits of his left servo, and was tinkering with the cannon.

"What sort of improvement are you making now?"

Ironhide looked up. "Trying to enhance the guidance system to improve my accuracy when I don't have a spotter to paint a target for me. Works fine when I have line of sight on a target. I'm thinking about getting a remote upgrade to paint targets when I need to arc fire over cover or the curvature of the Earth."

Optimus suspected Chromia's fine servo in that. Ironhide did not like firing over the horizon. He wanted to see his target with his own optics before he fired. The only reason the big black mech was not a front liner was that he was such a good shot. He had absolutely no problem with going ped-to-ped with anyone, given half an excuse. Chromia, on the other hand, was just as glad when he shot at their enemies from a distance—preferably beyond the range of returned fire.

Optimus said only, "A remote is a good idea. When you need one, you _really _need one."

Ironhide rumbled in response, then asked. "What are you doing here? I thought you were too busy to come out."

"Ratchet kicked me out of my office," Optimus replied, with more humor than annoyance.

"Haven't agreed with Ratchet much lately, but I do on that—you're spending too much time behind that desk. Like it or not, you're a warframe now, not a databot anymore—you can't spend that much time hardlined to a console without expecting things to start breaking down on you."

"Tell that to the paperwork," Optimus replied. "If this is to be my life from now on—thanks be to Primus."

"I'm not arguin' with that. I'm just sayin', you need to make time to get out here every day. Put some of the office work off on someone else. You don't have to put your glyph on every requisition form that comes in."

"I know," Optimus said.

"Kick all the weaponry and ammunition requests my way. I know what we need and what we don't, so I can go through that in no time. Let Ratchet handle everything related to medbay. Chromia can take care of housing and all that, as well as command the skirmishers. Jazz can handle the day to day business of spec-ops, same as he did before. Put Cade in charge of new construction; the former 'Cons respect him and he needs something more to keep him busy now that Skysong's doing better. Flareup's the biggest fraggin' gossip on base, you might as well make her press secretary. Most of the time, all you're going to need from them is a summary at the end of the day. Whenever something happens that you need to take care of right away, you sure don't need to be bogged down in details when it crops up."

Optimus nodded. "You are right about that. I shall take your suggestions to heart. Remember that you made them when you have to explain to Sunstreaker why he does not need to carry a regular load of incendiary ammunition."

"The only explanation I need to give that slagger is _Pit no," _Ironhide growled.

Optimus laughed. "Race you to the top of Coyote Mountain."

"You're on!"

That was the highest point on base, and getting to it required as much climbing as driving; no matter which was used, there were several possible routes to the top, but the fastest were not necessarily the roads. They transformed to their alts and took off across the desert, transforming back to jump the proving ground fence, and from there, again in alt mode, headed straight across the desert toward the peak.

The straightaway gave Optimus a lead—he needed every second of it when he had to take a slightly longer route to the top. Ironhide made up a lot of time on a shortcut with a lot of sharp hairpin curves that his slightly smaller alt could navigate more easily.

Optimus estimated the time it was going to take if he stayed on the road, against how fast Ironhide's plume of dust was climbing the other road. He transformed and climbed a dry wash, cutting off half a mile, then raced for the top flat out.

He lost sight of Ironhide behind a curve of the mountain. He transformed to climb the last few hundred meters, and had the summit to himself when he got there. He sat down and let his laboring fans cool his systems. Ratchet was right, Optimus admitted to himself—he did need to get out more. He shouldn't have overheated that much. It was a problem he'd been fighting since Chicago. He was beginning to suspect he wasn't moving coolant as efficiently as he should be. Sometimes self-healing protocols would seal off a few small lines to fix more critical larger ones, then somehow they didn't get reopened and repaired afterward.

When Ironhide hadn't got there in a couple of klicks, he sent a ping. ::Where are you, mech?::

No answer.

Optimus climbed down, following Ironhide's chosen route, which meant he stayed in root mode rather than get hung up on one of those curves. There were not exactly any guard rails up here.

It didn't take long for concern to turn to full-out worry. He stopped and concentrated on his clan bonds. ::Hide, where are you?::

To his immense relief, he got an answer. ::There you are! Watch yourself, part of the road collapsed. Did I bust my slaggin' comms?::

::You must have. Any other damage?::

::I think I twisted that trick ankle again. Leg's all fragged up.:: Optimus was getting a strong blast of annoyance with a side order of ache.

All in all, for a slide down the side of a mountain, it could be a lot worse.

He found the stretch of broken road and carefully looked over. Ironhide had gone down a few hundred meters, but there were several places on the way down where he'd caught himself and broken his fall. He was lying at the bottom with his leg twisted.

Ironhide looked up and advised, "You probably don't want to try to climb down that, Prime, there's too much loose slag. Go down a couple switchbacks and come across."

"I will be there in a few klicks. Should I call Ratchet for assistance?"

"Come look at it first. Me and Chromia got plans tonight that don't include me getting stuck in medbay."

"Very well."

Optimus climbed across to Ironhide, careful not to start another slide and get into trouble himself.

Ironhide's leg was twisted, but it was from his troublesome ankle joint popping out of place again, not because he'd over-torqued his shin strut.

"Give it a whack," Ironhide said.

"Are you sure you don't want Ratchet to look at it?"

"Naw, he'll just act like a little old femme and I'll never get out of medbay. I'd knock it back in place myself but I can't get turned around there right. Take the flat of your servo and smack it straight back in there, it'll pop right back into place. You know it does this all the time."

"All right, on three." Optimus knocked the strut back into place on two, before Ironhide had a chance to tense up. The weapons specialist had a few choice words for his foster-son that he wouldn't have said to his Prime if anyone else had been around; said foster-son did not much help matters by giving him a companionable grin, and no further lip.

Optimus threw some loose rocks out of the way. "Here, lean on me and see if you can put any weight on it."

Ironhide used Optimus' arm and his own good leg to get upright, then experimentally put his injured leg down.

Optimus told him, "Wait a minute, there's some fresh energon on your calf plate."

"Can't be that much, I can't feel it squirt. Can you tell where it's leaking from?"

Optimus followed the trail of droplets. "It looks like from somewhere around your knee. Turn around and get the light on it." He knelt to examine the new injury, ran his servo down the back of the joint to feel for anything marginally out of position.

Ironhide jumped, rattling his armor. "What the slag did you just do?"

"Nothing, what did it feel like?"

"I don't know, a weird tingle."

"You must have a pinched sensor. You should get Ratchet to look at this, Ironhide."

In Ironhide's life, a "weird tingle" was not worth a trip to medbay. And as for the leak behind his knee, it seemed to have stopped by itself. He wasn't sure how that could have happened—energon was under pressure, so normally it would have continued to drip for quite a while longer before his self-repair nanites plugged the hole.

Ironhide knew Ratchet would have Issues with him over not taking it, and himself, to medbay, but it was a lovely fall day, just cool enough to leave a black-painted bot at optimal operating temperature, and he had a date with the beautiful femme to whom he had somehow become bonded. He wasn't going to press his luck.

In any case, Optimus agreed that, while the injury should be seen to eventually, it was not an emergency, and the ankle was as stable as it ever got.

Optimus said, "You know, now that we are not being shot at every other day, you should consider finally having that leg rebuilt."

"I will, after they finish Jazz' frame. That's pretty much got med-sci tied up, any time they don't have an emergency in there. They don't need me taking up more of their time on something that's waited a couple of vorns already."

"Yes, of course. ─We should take it slow getting back to base, you don't want to throw your ankle out again."

Ironhide nodded. Damage indicators jangled whenever he put his weight on the joint, but nowhere nearly as insistently as he had expected. It was as if the injury had been healing for several days, not a few minutes.

He needed to let his self-repair work on it, because for the next couple of days it would be very easy to dislocate again. But once he got back to the road and transformed to his alt, there was almost no discomfort—the way his legs and peds fused when he transformed, his ankle joint did not bear very much weight in his alt form.

By the time they got back to base, Ironhide was feeling fine. He went looking for his mate while Optimus got the rock slide on the repair list, before someone else fell and got hurt.

-Sidhe Chronicles-

Mearing put aside her work as she took Lennox' call. She asked, "How did it go with Treadwell?"

"They're more trouble than they're worth. I'd say send 'em home, but the Wreckers are more trouble than they're worth, too. Same kind of unit. We'll need them. We just don't need them causing trouble with the rest of the outfit."

"The Wreckers. H'mm. That gives me an idea. They use pretty much the same tactics, don't they?"

"If you can call busting down the front door and killing anything that moves tactics, yeah. I've been on a few raids like that and tactics don't have much to do with it," Lennox replied.

"Have them train with the Wreckers," Mearing said. "They'll learn a few things from each other, and S5 won't be able to stir up trouble there, because if the Wreckers are anything at all, it's loyal to Prime."

A slow grin spread across Lennox' face. "That works. S5 is the only human front-line team we have outside my NEST troops, but not a one of them has a military background. That's going to get them killed as soon as they go up against a trained unit. Roadbuster can teach them what they need to know. And it won't hurt the Wreckers to train with some humans who have the same attitude they do."

"You're eventually going to have to deal with the attitude problem, Colonel."

"I hope broadening their horizons will take care of that for us. At least I'd like to give them a chance for that to happen."

Mearing nodded thoughtfully. If Lennox thought there was still a chance of integrating S5 into the greater whole of NEST, she was all for one more try before giving up on them.

S13 were great investigators who were capable when things got dangerous. They had proven that they were team players. If it came to a choice, their place with NEST was assured.

If their efforts with S5 didn't work, the vampire hunters would get their wish: they'd be freed of the agency. They were, fortunately for them, useful enough not to be fired outright. They'd go back to life as it had been before they'd ever heard of NEST, working out of their book shop, investigating the cases that fell within their narrow purview, but they would be closely watched, and that would be as far as they would ever go in their careers. Mearing didn't want to see that happen, as she thought they had a great deal more than their present work to contribute, but it was up to them.

-Sidhe Chronicles-

Three time zones away, Jazz went through the results from his web spiders, and quickly examined the image files from the cameras he monitored.

He had access to only a fraction of the cameras that were out there: those which deliberately made their feed available to anyone on the Internet who wanted to watch. There were others—security video, traffic cams, and so forth— which would all be more likely to get results for him. But this massive effort would come to nothing if he obtained information from some source their human allies were not allowed to act upon.

He was thinking about that when Jolt came in. "Jazz, do you have a minute? Ratchet wants you to come in and test your new frame."

Jazz whooped. "You mean you're that far along with it? I thought it would be _orns _yet!"

"It isn't fully ready—you covert ops bots have a ton of subsystems the rest of us have never even _seen_ before. You're just lucky Ratchet has been your healer long enough to have experience with all of them, or you'd be slag-out-of-luck getting some of them back. Right now we need you to test the primary systems."

Jazz' holoform winked out as he jumped into the wiring to meet Jolt in Wheeljack's lab.

It was starting to look like a human morgue in there. In addition to his own protoform, there were three other completely undifferentiated ones in various stages of construction, and one smaller one that would be Skysong's youngling frame as soon as she had developed enough to be reformatted into it.

She, and it, had matured now to the point where Barricade could bring her in and show it to her, and let her touch it. She understood that it would be hers someday when she was big enough, and then she would be able to fly again—although that "someday" seemed a very long way away to such a tiny sparkling. The intermediate form of her second flier, to be hers once she outgrew her ultralight, was nearly completed.

All of those rested beneath shroud-like dust covers, protection against the desert grit which got into everything left lying in the open.

Jazz' own frame was starting to be identifiable as his—which made looking down on it, lying on a slab, a very creepy proposition. He did not care to explain to anyone at all how a ghost would be creeped out by looking at a body, since he was well aware it was the "ghost" part that tended to creep other people out.

And if Sides and Sunny ever got wind of his creeped-outness, he would never hear the end of it.

Jazz floated over to the frame, using some of the training that Diarwen had been giving him to make himself visible without his holoform generator, which was back in his office. "Ratch, wow, this is lookin' great! You an' Wheeljack have really—Ah—thanks, mechs. Just, thanks."

Ratchet started to pat his shoulder, then remembered Jazz was sensitive about being touched, and didn't. "Our pleasure, Jazz."

"Jolt said ya needed me to run some tests?"

"Yes, I want you to wake it up, and then if everything goes according to plan, see if you can sit up and walk around."

"Have ya already installed m'backups?"

"Yes, there was no other way to give you systems control. There's a four-year gap, of course. Do you want to update from your mainframe first?"

Jazz said, "Ah can do that tonight, when y'all aren't workin' on it. If it's to the point where it can walk around, Ah need to install some security to make sure Soundwave can't take it for a joyride."

Que said, "We certainly don't need that. Can you secure it when you aren't in it?"

"Not perfectly. Nothin' AI-based is going to keep Soundwave out for long, he's too good for that. But it can let me know he's tryin', an' then Ah'll take care o' him."

Que said, "I have installed a mechanical failsafe that may be useful in that eventuality." He opened the protoform's chest plates.

Jazz concealed a grimace, but looked where Que was pointing. Hidden deep inside the protoform's internals, where it could not possibly be hit by accident, and would be very difficult to hit by design, was a small switch. "This disconnects the batteries and shuts down the generator."

"A suicide switch?"

"Essentially. I would not even think of installing such a thing in any other frame, regardless of how well protected it is. But in your case, as a last resort, if someone else takes possession of your frame, you can simply bail out and then use this switch to shut them down. I don't know whether that would do Soundwave any true harm, but I daresay it would inconvenience him greatly. Especially if you do not download the memory of this conversation into the frame's drives."

Jazz grinned. No one else would be able to get to that switch easily, but Jazz could. "Que, Ah just love yer lil' surprises."

"Are you ready to try this?" Ratchet asked.

"Yeah, easiest way would be if ya hardline it to th' power grid," the saboteur replied.

Ratchet attached a line from the work table to a power port on the protoframe's arm, and said, much more gently than was usual for him, "Jazz. This is only a dry run. We go into it assuming that there will be issues, the objective is to find them and correct them. Don't be disappointed if it isn't perfect right away."

Jazz nodded. If he went into this expecting to wake up the protoform and immediately be back to normal, he'd just be setting himself up for a huge downer if it didn't work out that way. "Here goes," he said, and jumped.

To begin with, it was weird with a capital "W" to inhabit a frame that was in stasis while he was wide awake.

As the frame came online, the weirdness settled down. The HUD came up first, scrolling the boot sequence. If he'd really just been coming out of stasis, he wouldn't have been awake enough yet to concentrate on that, but then the sensors started to come up.

He had gotten used to using cameras for optics and microphones for audials, though there was always a bit of dissonance between the remote sensors and what his ghostly senses told him. But as the frame woke up, Jazz could see and hear normally—could even perceive energy fields, though he knew a lot more now about what he was actually seeing than he had before.

And then his haptic arrays came online. The work table was both hard and cold. The room's ventilation fans blew warm air.

Other senses crowded into his perception—the smell of oil and energon, and hot metal from some welding that Que had been doing. Time and position sense. Field interaction. The pull of gravity. The taste of his oral cavity. An itch below his left shoulder strut.

"Primus! Give me a klick, it's like spinnin' around inside a kaleidoscope!"

Ratchet said, "Dim your optics, dial all your sensors including your audials down, then bring them back up slowly. I should have anticipated that there would be a recovery period from sensory deprivation."

Jazz obeyed. With the sensors on-lining gradually, it was not quite as overwhelming, but he decided he could spend about an orn simply standing in front of a fan and experiencing the sensations of air moving across his plating. Incredible.

Nathan Stoughton had spent more than two vorns as a ghost, and didn't seem to mind at all. Jazz had been in this state for a few weeks, and only now did he realize how starved for sensation he had been.

He pushed that thought away, busying himself with the tests that Ratchet needed to run. If he thought about that, he'd start thinking about why, and before long he'd be thinking about Prowl, and how much he missed the touch of his bonded. One thing about Ratchet, once he got busy doing tests, there wasn't a spare minute to worry about anything else.

By the time the tests were finished, Jazz went back to collect the results from his web spiders. All but one had reported back. The log for the missing one showed it last having reported from Denver, Colorado.

Very interesting.

Web spiders, like drones in the physical world, sometimes glitched. In the physical world, you went out and got it and repaired it. On the Internet, they simply stopped running. Or maybe someone's intrusion countermeasures smacked them with a rolled-up e-newspaper. There was no way he could tell which had happened, or how long the missing spider had been active after its last report, or where it had gone from there.

He messaged Charlotte Mearing, asking for a meeting when she had time. Web spiders were all fine and good, but he needed something a little more directed. For that, he needed to know exactly what he could legally do.

It was a quarter joor before Mearing had a chance to get back to him. They were both on a secure line; he initiated programming to make sure it stayed that way before explaining why he needed to speak to her.

Mearing listened quietly while he told her about his efforts with the web cams. "Director, Ah've read everything Ah could find on this, and there don't seem to be any clear guidelines on which surveillance I can legally get into. What about traffic cams? It would really help if I could use those."

"I don't see why you couldn't, Jazz. It would be a matter of getting permission from the towns and cities which are responsible for the cameras."

"Let's start with Denver, Colorado."

"Why Denver?"

"One of m'web spiders reported in from there before it disappeared there last night. Might not be anything...but then again, it just might. They have images that anyone can look at on the Internet, but those only get refreshed every ten klicks. I'm sure they have a real-time feed."

"I'm sure they have the ability to transmit real-time data, but I doubt the city could afford to put that online. I'll make a call and see if I can get you permission to access them. Under the Patriot Act we may not need permission, but since we don't have evidence of a specific threat, I'd rather not tread on anyone's toes."

"Is it legal to spy on people like that?"

"You mean the traffic cams?"

"Yeah."

"Yes, it is, as long as they only cover public streets. No one has an expectation of privacy in the middle of a street. In order to conduct surveillance of an area where people do have a reasonable expectation of privacy, it's usually necessary to go to a judge and get a warrant—and judges don't give those out like candy. You need a good reason. If you give me a good reason, we have a whole staff of lawyers to get the warrant. That having been said, if you have a legitimate reason to believe that the Decepticons are there, under the Patriot Act we don't need a warrant to search for a terrorist cell, but I do have to sign off on it, and I'll have to be able to defend it later. The rule of thumb about a warrantless search is, you'd better be right. If there are exigent circumstances, I'd rather go to the Hill and defend a search than let the 'Cons kill a bunch of innocent people. If they're not going anywhere, let's get the warrant."

"The thing is, if we get a warrant, then Soundwave'll know about it as soon as any keyword he has flagged gets into a system he's monitorin'," Jazz replied. "And none o' your computer security has a prayer o' stoppin' him, except maybe some of the really high level CIA operations whose first line of defense is an AI. There's no way somebody typin' on a keyboard and dependin' on a monitor to tell 'em what's happening could react fast enough."

Mearing gave an exasperated sigh. "Jazz, you're not supposed to know about those AIs. That's beyond top secret. Is this line secure from everyone except the two of us?"

"As far as I can tell it is."

"Don't mention them, ever, off this secure line. In fact, don't mention them, full stop, unless you've got a really good reason."

"Gotcha," Jazz replied. "Thing to keep in mind is, even they can't stop him. But they can slow him down and give the human hackers a chance to counterattack."

"He's that dangerous."

"He's been Megsy's 3iC since th' start o' th' war. He was a front-liner, ya didn't wanna mess with him. But Megsy hardly ever sent him out in th' field because he was too damn valuable jacked into a comms system somewhere. He didn't go out on the front line till Megsy was ready to go all in. That's how good he is."

"That would definitely factor into my decision," Mearing said.

After they ended the conversation, Jazz went through the data his spiders had returned. One of them had been tasked with locating any information regarding James Smith, and it had found a hit. Information about an early 80's DARPA-funded project on early DNI technology had been leaked into underground hacker sites—many of those guys considered a working DNI model the holy grail and there were several groups known to be working on various technologies. Jazz read through the files. The project from the 80's wouldn't have worked, but it was valuable preliminary research, and one of the scientists working on it had been a young Dr. James Smith. Working with him had been another inventor, a man named Lester Hardy.

Jazz began another search, this time for Hardy. After thirty years, nearly half a human lifetime, it was probably too much to hope for that Hardy knew where Smith might have gone. In fact, one or both might now be dead—but it still was a lead.

-Sidhe Chronicles-

After lunch, Mikaela went to the medbay to report for her first shift. Ratchet had her help him scrub the berths while he gave her an oral quiz to see what she remembered from when she had studied with him before, and what she had learned in college.

After, she asked, "What are we dealing with right now?"

"You're familiar with Jazz' situation, aren't you?"

"Yes, we've talked a few times since I got home." She smiled at that memory. Alone of all humanity, she had a second chance to connect with someone who had died.

"Well, we're building a frame for him. He inhabited it for the first time this morning. I have a whole list of things that need to be fine-tuned, but on the whole, he and I were both pleased with it."

"That's wonderful. You know, I heard about miracles all the time when my neighbor used to take me to Sunday School when I was a kid. But I always thought they were just stories, until I saw a few for myself."

"Your people say that there are no atheists in foxholes. I have certainly seen enough to believe that there is much more than what we see," Ratchet said. "Still, Optimus and Sam, and now Jazz, having been returned to us—as you say, these are things out of legend and mythology."

"Amazing. I was right there in Egypt while it happened, and I still don't know what to make of it. I don't know if I ever will."

"There weren't any atheists in that foxhole, so to speak," Ratchet said, which made Mikaela grin: when had he developed a sense of humor?

The medbot went on with his summary. "While we're doing that, we're also building a few extra protoforms so that we'll be prepared if someone needs to reformat. And, of course working on Skysong's flight drone and her youngling frame."

"Is the flight drone like an intermediate form between her sparkling and youngling frames?"

"In broad terms, yes, but it still is more of a vehicle than an actual frame. But she will be able to hardline to it just as she would to one of our large transport ships, and fly it as an extension of herself."

Kaela scrubbed at a stubborn oil spot. "How is she?"

"Healing, both physically and emotionally. She's afraid of Earth vehicles and won't go near the parking lot."

"That sounds perfectly reasonable to me."

"We're not making an issue of it. Dr. Parker told me that, among humans, a technique called desensitization is used to reduce the impact of a phobia—exposing the sufferer to the source of their fear in gradual increments until it loses its power over them. That wouldn't work for our sparklings—it would be more likely to ingrain the fear and result in a lifelong glitch."

"So how _do_ we help her?"

"Make it possible for her to help herself. If she evidences fear, get between her and whatever is frightening her. Sparklings are programmed to take shelter behind an adult if something frightens them. Then ask her what she is afraid of, and give her a logical reason not to be afraid. Usually she's afraid she will run into another vehicle, of course. You could tell her that you won't go onto the pavement where the vehicle is, for example, or that you will wait until you are absolutely sure it's safe before you cross. In time, once her processor matures enough to do so, she will internalize all those reasons, and come to see the phobia for the illogical reaction that it is."

"I don't understand. Isn't that the same thing as desensitization?"

"No, of course not. Desensitization involves exposing yourself to the object of your fear, at first in very distant ways. For instance, if you were afraid of snakes you might start by looking at a picture of a snake from across the room, and progress from that to watching a video of a snake, and then to observing a caged snake, and finally to actually touching a harmless one. All of those things involve repeated exposure to the object of fear, so that the fear lessens more or less by a process of becoming tiresome.

"Our method involves first protecting the sufferer from the object of fear, then making the fear logically unnecessary. After a while, the sufferer will begin seeking logical alternatives to panic as a matter of habit."

"And, it works, because the little ones can depend on their cohort to protect them, regardless."

"Yes."

Ratchet didn't understand the sadness that filled Mikaela's eyes for a moment, before she went back to scrubbing the medical berth. She had no cohort, really. One father whose primary relationships were with alcohol and criminality, and that was all.

The human-sized door opened and Chip Chase rolled in. "Ratchet, got a minute? I wanted to talk to you about the neural-interface unit for my chair. Got an idea for somethin' but I don't know if it'll work."

"You might do better to ask Dr. Parker, Chip, she is the expert in human systems."

"Thing is this, I'm trying to come up with a way to avoid using them contact pads. That means readin' the electrical fields—and you're the expert on that, Doc Bot."

"I'll do what I can, on one condition."

"Yeah, what's that?"

"You stop calling me that!"

Chase laughed. "You got it."

Ratchet offered his servo to give Mikaela a lift down from the berth. Now that his apprentice had removed the stains, it was easy for him to spray the berth down and let it air-dry.

She and Chip were quickly introduced—actually, reintroduced, as they had met in Egypt, and seen each other around the base a few times since her arrival here. But a lot had been going on then, and this was really the first time they had a chance to say hello. Chip became very interested very quickly when he realized that she was now a) no longer jailbait, and b) no longer Sam Witwicky's girlfriend.

For her part, Mikaela had always found the big red-head easy on the eyes, and when Ratchet mentioned that they would probably be working together, that was an interesting piece of news.

Ratchet had seen _that_ before. Pupils dilated, flood of pheromones. He shut down his vocalizer before he groaned out loud. For many reasons, their short lifespan at the top of the list, mating had to be a high priority for their species to survive. But would it be too much to ask to keep their courtship rituals out of his medbay?

Apparently so. He crossed the room to check his schedule at his workstation, completely unnecessary since he could have pinged it wirelessly, but it was a polite excuse to give them time to say hello.

Mikaela said, "It's good to see you again, Chip."

"Hi, Kaela, yeah, it is. Been a while."

"Yeah, since I left Diego," she replied. It was hard to comprehend: Chip, in a wheelchair? "I don't want to be rude, but what-?"

"In Chicago, Shockwave backhanded me into a second story wall, an' I landed on a wrecked taxi," he explained. "Broke my back in two places."

"Aw, fuck. I'm sorry, man."

"Hey, I'm alive," Chip said. "When I got swatted, that wasn't how I expected it to come out. I was pretty lucky, considering."

"God, I can imagine."

Chip broke the awkward silence that followed by asking, "Where the hell have you been, anyhow?"

"I finished my engineering degree at Texas A&M. Just got back in town a couple days ago." She glanced at the photo ID hanging around his neck. "You're a civilian contractor now?"

"Yep, IS department. So...it looks like we might be seein' a lot of each other, huh? Gotta say, the scenery just improved a whole lot."

"You haven't changed a bit," she replied. "Still the biggest horndog on base." And now...she was single. Joy.

Chip grinned. "You wouldn't have it any other way, honey."

"Keep telling yourself that, Chipster," she shot back. All the same, in spite of herself, she registered that he wasn't exactly an eyesore. "What's this project you're working on?"

Chip outlined the basics of his chair's control system, and almost immediately mating rituals took a back seat to Tinkering with Something.

That crossed the species barrier without even noticing it was there. Ratchet rejoined them, so that Chip wouldn't feel obliged to explain everything twice.

Kaela's background was purely mechanical, her human medical skills limited to the advanced first aid training that avid motorcyclists and hikers were wise to take. She occasionally asked questions about the neural interface.

"How far from the surface of the skin are the nerve impulses you need to control the chair going to be detectable?"

"It varies. It's best t'use th' closest ones, though; th' further away, th' more interference there will be from other nerve bundles, an' that could cause control issues with th' chair. I don't want to reach for a pencil an' ram into the desk."

"Could be entertaining for the rest of us, but you wouldn't get a lot of work done that way," Kaela observed. "At least you don't have to worry about getting your sleeve caught on the joystick. The lady next door where we lived when when I was a little kid used to do that all the time."

Chip was startled into a wide grin. Very few people were accepting enough of his condition to make wiseass remarks about his chair; they were too afraid of hurting his feelings or being politically incorrect. He almost kissed her on the spot. "Two-way radios can make 'em take off unexpectedly, too. So can other kinds of EMI or RFI. It ain't a huge problem, but it can happen."

"Indeed it could," Ratchet told him. "In fact, I, or any other Cybertronian, could easily take remote control of your chair."

"Somethin' t' keep in mind," Chip replied. "Anythin' I can do about that?"

"Yes, there is some shielding you could put in place."

"Be something to work on, after we finish this," he said. "Sooner or later, somebody's gonna get a bright idea."

"Oh, yeah," Kaela agreed. "Quick disconnect for the batteries, maybe, somewhere you can reach it easy?"

Chip nodded. That went on the list of possible upgrades, then the three of them turned to the problems posed by contact pads.

End Part 8


	9. Chapter 9

Disclaimers in Part 1

Just like all the other invertebrate hunters, Chip was outfitted with a trident (a spear whose business end was three heads, spaced closely together) and a UV headlamp.

The UV goggles he had developed weren't quite so effective as he needed them to be to clear the play area. He'd play with them when he got back, maybe ask Mikaela—Chip smiled—for help with the problem.

"They sure are pretty under the UV light," he philosophized, and speared another scorpion.

Jazz, currently haunting his chair, said, "Yeah, they sure are." And they were, a sort of screaming aqua.

Jazz would have preferred to hunt on his own, giving his new body another trial run, but Ratchet had asked them to team up.

"Chip's hunting with us. I want you to hitch a ride on his chair; your primary job is to keep any scorpions off it," the medic said, tinkering with Jazz' elbow. "Any other scorpions you get are a bonus."

Thinking about it, Jazz had put his disappointment aside. There were too many variables here—rough terrain being the most severe—for him to give the new place to live a good airing. And Chip, who had saved Skysong's life, very likely, was pretty high on Jazz' list of "People of any species I'd do a lot for." No, being unable to hunt scorpions with the rest of the gang was a small, a very small, disappointment once he remembered that.

The humans in the group wore heavy leather gloves, which allowed Chip to clean his spear of the kill. The Cybertronians had no need of such but a little thought had persuaded Ratchet (who rather felt it was his job to foresee and prevent disasters) that having a human climb up onto a venom-coated servo was…something to avoid. They too wore gloves, although they weren't leather. Que was quite proud of having come up with the fabric, and the US government had expressed intense interest in acquiring the formula.

Money rollin' in, Jazz mused.

Que himself was the source of bright-red puffs of light, directed by Diarwen. Alone of them all, she could "set" herself to find scorpions which had just molted, and were therefore not fluorescent. Que's weapon was a handheld laser, recently developed by himself, and of real interest to both the government and Ratchet, who saw it as a multi-metal welder.

And then, the puffs stopped, and Que's voice came across the desert floor. "I…can't kill that one."

Diarwen, sounding somewhat less than amused: "Why not?"

"She has her children clinging to her back."

"Oh, for Primus' sake," said the elf, and clambered down his plating. She took out a sample bottle, placed it upside-down over Mama and all her scorplings, and handed Que the lid. "Here. Punch some airholes into it. Lots of very small ones, please."

At the end of the hunt, Mama was escorted to med bay and given to Dr. Parker, who arranged a lovely week of catering for her and her brood to show her son and all the other NEST brats, including three very curious sparklings, what scorpions were like. On Day Eight she transported the lot of them a long, long way to a brand-new life, and gave them back their freedom.

Because no one on the base was willing to kill babies. Of any species.

Now, though, the Sidhe grumbled and put the baby carrier into her BDU cargo pocket, and went back on the hunt with Que.

Jazz used the stereo that Kentuckian had rigged on his chair to ask, "You got anythin' in your sights?"

"Not just now."

Jazz reversed the chair smartly, and crushed a scorpion under the wheels.

By two AM, they had finished: no screaming-aqua creepy-crawlies crept anywhere within the small forcefield Que erected to keep them out, not even after he had Optimus hold the VBUV (Very Big Ultra Violet) lamp as far overhead as possible, which filled the area with the ghostly purple light.

Fair enough. Time to go home. Parker had put herself on this shift, so that if anything went wrong she was there; she graciously accepted a jar filled with scorpions, and the hunt was over.

-Sidhe Chronicles-

Optimus, Chip, Jack, Diarwen and Jazz had just finished their usual morning meeting. Jazz had his frame, and had spent the morning sparring with Optimus. He was keeping it slow, under strict orders from Ratchet—they didn't want damage to the frame, which would slow down the process of attaching to it.

Chip was modifying his tae kwon do katas to use from his manual, sports wheelchair. Jack was a beginner, still learning his first kata; Chip often stopped what he was doing to give him a few pointers.

After Diarwen finished her sword dance, she laid her weapons aside and offered to be his sparring partner.

She quickly found that she did not need to hold back any more than she would with anyone else. Dr. Parker had recently given Chip the go-ahead to do anything he was able to do in the gym, aside from falling farther than the lowest seat-height on his chair, or getting kicked in the back, since it would be a few more weeks before his fractures were completely healed.

They policed the circle of sand once more to be sure there were no rocks, but found none, since Diarwen had already cleared them out.

They couldn't do any defense against weapons moves, because Diarwen did her sword dance with a live blade and didn't have practice weapons with her. But she quickly ran through her beginning forms and then found Chip easily defending against intermediate to advanced moves.

This was not just some guy in a wheelchair. This was a United States Army Ranger who was adapting his combat style to his current situation.

After ten minutes, they had enough of a feel for each other's style to move on to contact free-sparring. "Contact" did not mean a full-out strike—it meant just that, a simple touch. They knew what the result of an actual hit would be.

Jazz, Optimus, and Jack all stopped and stared the first time Diarwen threw a snap kick. Chip caught her ankle and twisted, throwing her to the sand—and came out of the chair, landing several pulled punches on the back of her head. She got clear, but by the time she jumped to her feet, Chip was back in his chair grinning at her.

That scenario repeated itself several times, with both of them equally likely to be attacker or defender. Diarwen quickly demonstrated to the two bots that, in order to strike Chip, she had to step into his circle. Her greater mobility was useful to get out of his way, but if she could attack him, he was automatically in a position to counter-attack: and he wasted no opportunities to do so.

That was not to say he wouldn't have been at a disadvantage in a real fight, of course. But against an unarmed attacker, especially one who was not trained at his level, Chip Chase was not at the level of disadvantage one might assume.

After they finished sparring, Chip, Jack and Diarwen did a series of cool-down stretches, then settled down in a circle for fifteen minutes of meditation. Chip and Jack weren't so sure about that; meditation wasn't part of their background, as it was for the others. And, unlike Chip, Jack hadn't caught on to energy manipulation. This was a disappointment to him because he had hoped to learn healing magic.

They were heading back to base when Ironhide pinged Optimus. ::Want to make a trip into Vegas today?::

::I suppose so, why?::

::Sarah says that the playground equipment is there, and it will probably take both of us to haul it back here.::

::What do they have, anyway?::

Ironhide sent him a list. ::It looks like everything you'd find in a playground for human children. All we need to build are things for the sparklings to play on, and the shelter for the cooking area and picnic tables.::

::We will be there in a breem,:: Optimus replied.

Diarwen rode into town with Optimus, and Sarah went with Ironhide. They could have used their holoforms, but they had discovered that the holoforms sometimes caused the same kind of road hazard (creating double-takes from neighboring drivers) as trying to travel without any driver at all did.

Holoforms sometimes flickered, and maybe that was it, but Optimus was beginning to suspect that many humans sensed auras without realizing they were doing so. When they looked at a vehicle and saw a driver sitting there, but didn't see an aura, they knew something was wrong even though they couldn't explain what it was.

Que thought that was an interesting hypothesis. He was considering ways to add an energy field to the hologram.

When Optimus told Diarwen that, her eyes widened. "Is that possible?"

"I have learned not to use the word 'impossible' where Wheeljack is concerned," he replied.

Now, sitting in the "driver's" seat in Optimus' cab, Diarwen said, "These things cannot be cheap. How did Sarah pay for it all?"

Optimus said, "She posted a picture of some of the children playing in the sand on a web site frequented by military wives, and the donations flooded in. It seems that the company which makes the playground equipment gave them a very good discount on it as well."

"That was so generous of them! We will have to remember it the next time a similar appeal is posted on that site," Diarwen said.

"Indeed. I will put it on the list of sites that I monitor."

"Write them a paper letter as well, and be sure they know they have your permission to use it. That will generate business for them, the best way we have of saying 'Thank you.'"

"A very good idea. I'll do that."

A woman with a cell phone glued to her ear cut in between him and Ironhide. Optimus emitted a burst of energy that dropped her call, and when he was sure she had control of her vehicle, honked his horn at her. She gave him the hairy eyeball, which quickly morphed into a lightbulb-over-the-head moment when she realized exactly whom she was hairy-eyeballing, but she did drop the phone into the passenger seat.

Over the comms, Ironhide was laughing.

Diarwen shook her head. "Some sort of common sense test should be required to get a driver's license," she said, as Cell Phone Lady ducked down the first off ramp they came to and slunk away into the suburbs.

"I begin to understand," Optimus said dryly, "about getting one's license from a Crackerjack box."

"Oh, those are the good ones," Diarwen said. "Epps is sure some of these people cut theirs off the back of a cereal box."

A few minutes later, they pulled into a freight depot on the outskirts of the city, and the two Cybertronians waited while Sarah and Diarwen went in the office to sign the paperwork.

Workers with forklifts brought boxes out, and Optimus and 'Hide quickly loaded the trailers. Optimus helped Ironhide check all the tiedowns on his flatbed, then they let the warehouse guys take pictures with them before heading back to base.

Diarwen teased, "You will be a Facebook star again for a while."

"I do not think of myself as any sort of star, but Director Mearing feels that anything we can do to gain people's goodwill is likely to be beneficial in times to come," he said.

Diarwen nodded. "She is right."

"Diarwen, I have a question. What is the purpose of dedication? Is it the same as initiation?"

"You mean, the ritual?"

"Yes."

"Many people feel a need to dedicate themselves to their deities. It can be a statement of devotion, of love, of purpose, of gratitude...of family tradition...there are many reasons. In my tradition, not everyone dedicates him or herself to one of the Gods, especially exclusively. Many people honor all of the Gods. I did not dedicate myself to Brigit until I became Her high priestess.

"Initiation is a different thing, and typically follows one's year-and-a-day and takes place once the would-be initiate has learned whatever the tradition in question considers basic knowledge. It is a statement of the initiate's solemn, considered intention to follow that specific path. It is a commitment. For many people born into a religious path, it is a coming-of-age ritual. Does your tradition not have parallels?"

Optimus said thoughtfully, "We do...of sorts. As soon as I was made Ironhide and Chromia's fosterling, they took me to the temple at Simfur to dedicate me to Primus' service. My parents probably did so as well, but if they did I have lost the memory of it. Due to my caste—clerks were a lay priesthood—it was necessary so that I could receive my programming upgrades and training. There were coming-of-age ceremonies when I became a youngling and an adult mech, but by then I was known to bear the sigil. It was not my decision that was of any consequence, but that of Primus."

"At some point, Optimus, even if Primus Himself has given you your marching orders, you have to say 'Yes sir' and accept the responsibility. Is that not so?"

He replied, "Not in our tradition. I was never told that I had a choice. I was told that it is so, by the Will of Primus, and to disobey was to Fall."

"I see," Diarwen replied, troubled.

"I have always wondered how things might have been different if the Fallen, and later Sentinel, had been given the opportunity to reflect upon whether this truly was the path they were meant to follow. We are chosen as new sparks, but no one stays the same from sparklinghood to full mecha upgrade."

Diarwen nodded. "Perhaps this is one of the answers that you are meant to begin seeking during your year-and-a-day. I do not know—it may be that you made the choice in the Lands Beyond, before you were sparked a Prime."

"Perhaps. After all, had Jazz not made the decision to return to assist us in our fight against Soundwave, he would still be in the Well of All Sparks with his bondmate."

"That's so. Also, yours is a very old tradition. Traditions are shaped by the culture that gives rise to them, and by the religion which expresses them. Perhaps it was the decision of the priesthood that all young Primes would be raised to that life."

"To speculate on that was called blasphemy."

"It has been my experience that it is generally priests more than gods who define blasphemy," Diarwen replied dryly. "The Gods advise us that things are or are not likely to be beneficial to us. It is priests who decree, you shall, or shall not, do these things, upon pain of utter destruction. Only rarely do the Gods say to us 'I command' or 'I forbid.' And when They do, it has little to do with the exalted standing of priests, and everything to do with dire necessity."

"Yet, all the majority faiths here have their Ten Commandments, their Golden or Silver Rule."

"Yes. You will have to ask the chaplain about that...and I would advise you to do so. I can give you only a basic overview of world religions, and I think that you should understand them. As an outsider looking in, I see great similarities between the Cybertronian path and that of the various monotheists. But I am not the one to teach you of them—you know my history."

"I do. Few with your grievances would give their enemies such a fair hearing."

"To begin with, respect for our enemies is required of those who follow my warrior code. And for another thing...the Burning Times were a horrible nightmare. If understanding can help to prevent such a thing from ever happening again, then perhaps there will never again be a need for me to raise my sword against them."

"May it be so," Optimus replied.

"Amen," she replied, which puzzled him until he found its definition: it too meant "may it be so," in the ancient language of a monotheistic tribe.

-Sidhe Chronicles-

The playground site was already under construction when they arrived. Sarah had left the plans for the playground with Crossfire, and the Tractorbots had already made a good start on preparing the surface. A human contingent was constructing a tall chain-link fence around it, while the Wreckers were building the shelter. Killstrike and Burnout were digging a ditch for the utility pipes and cables from the base. Another group of humans were putting those in, and the Little Twins were filling the ditch behind them.

Sarah stood on Ironhide's running board, holding on with one hand and shading her eyes with the other. "Wow! This is coming right along!"

Ironhide called, "Hey, Crossfire, where d'ya want us to put this stuff?"

The gestalt leader considered, then pointed out a space that had been set aside for a basketball court. "Set it over there for now."

Sunstreaker and Jolt came over to help unload the trailers. Swings, sliding boards, a jungle gym, a "rock" wall, seesaws, other outdoor toys. Picnic tables, charcoal grills, the other necessities for the shelter. The materials for the shelter itself. Park benches. Light poles. Trash cans.

And that was just the part for the humans.

One of the foundations that they were building was for an odd-shaped structure of interconnected platforms and interesting shapes to climb on or fly around. There were several places to perch and watch the goings-on below, some designed for recharging in the sun, and some sheltered against the midday heat.

All could be reached by climbing, and all the climbing surfaces were designed to prevent a fall of more than ten or fifteen feet. Everything had been designed with Skysong's limitations in mind, but also made to remain of interest as she transcended them.

Another group of moms and older children arrived in work clothes, carrying tool boxes; Roadbuster and Crossfire consulted, then put them to work building the ball shed. Soon the racket of power saws and hammers added to the already-prodigious noise level.

Once everything had been offloaded and the trailers were out of the way, it soon became obvious that Prime and Ironhide were too big to be of much help. Prime offloaded Roller from his trailer, then he and Ironhide went back to base.

Diarwen stuck close to Roller. She knew that once Optimus got back to Admin, he'd have people coming at him from all sides with the million and one tasks he had to complete every day. Roller was just independent enough to get himself into trouble sometimes when Optimus' attention was on something else.

The Sidhe and the remote started out filling a pit at the bottom of the sliding board with soft mulch, because as sure as anything, some child would certainly try sliding down it head first.

Chip and Kaela began setting up the breaker box for the shelter house. It had started out as a place for a few picnic tables, with a community charcoal grill, but with the donation of a dorm fridge, a microwave and a sink, it had become an outdoor kitchen as well. Therefore, the breaker box. With the box in place, when the utilities got to them, they'd be ready to wire into it and then run wiring from there to everything else.

They were focused on their own part of the job, and so didn't notice that one of Epps' sons, working in the rafters above them, was having trouble with a long two by four—until it got away from him.

Kaela heard him yell and knocked it away from Chip and herself—only to land in the Kentuckian's lap, in front of everybody whose attention had been attracted by the boy's shout.

Kaela reddened and jumped up like she'd been scalded. Chip didn't say a word, just grinned ear to ear.

The young engineer handed the two by four back up to the Epps boy. "Bobby Junior, you'e working, not playing. Watch what you're doing up there! Someone could get hurt!"

"Yes, ma'am." But the thirteen-year-old was snickering as he nailed the piece into place.

-Sidhe Chronicles-

Jazz had got permission from the Denver authorities to tap the feed from their traffic cams. He was inhabiting his frame at the moment, decidedly more comfortable than the mainframe, and when he wasn't in it, he could use the mainframe as a remote to process the data feed from the cameras.

The frame was still at a very rudimentary level of functioning—but he had movement and senses.

Wheeljack was working on the subsystems separately in his lab. Jazz knew there were a number of procedures in his future to get them all installed. He also knew that in many cases, "working on the subsystems separately" was a euphemism for "cleaning up and refurbishing things that had been salvaged from his original frame."

All right. A long time ago he had put in his medical records that everything possible should be salvaged from his frame if he went offline. Humans were getting to the point where they could do the same thing, transplant organs from people who didn't need them anymore to others who desperately did. It was just common sense. What they had consigned to the depths at his funeral—which, unlike Tom Sawyer, he had missed—had been so damaged as to be beyond recovery.

He also knew they didn't have the ability here to build most of those subsystems. He was lucky that Ratchet had been able to harvest what he had, and that nobot had needed them in the meanwhile.

But it still creeped him out.

He had always thought of life as one thing and death as something else. But now they were getting all mixed up, and it confused and even—Pit, he was mature enough to admit it scared the slag out of him. He didn't know if he was alive or dead or something in between, and that scared him.

Aaaand...it had absolutely nothing to do with figuring out what had happened to his web spider.

The mainframe, running the images from the traffic cams through recognition software, had just thrown an alert. He sent his consciousness down his link with the mainframe to see what it had found.

Outside an electronics store, a blue Ford hatchback was parked. A man was loading his purchases from the electronics store into the hatchback—several bags of computer components.

That man was James Smith. Oh, he had changed his appearance, and he was dressed like a computer pro, not a doctor. But it was the same guy.

He couldn't see the license plate.

Jazz followed his connection to that traffic cam for a look around, but the car was just turning the next corner—into a part of town that didn't have the cameras.

He zipped back to flag both Smith's image and his car, and waited for another flag, hoping to get the license plate. But he had no such luck.

The alarm he raised, though, moved the search for Smith from Beaverton to Denver.

-Sidhe Chronicles-

Unaware that he had been spotted, Smith took a shortcut through Denver that avoided the traffic cams on his way home. He had acquired the electronic components for the prototype of the implanted DNI. Soundwave was getting the medical supplies necessary to create the implants from various Internet sources. Those things were esoteric enough that if they bought them all from the same place, someone would notice.

He had a two-hour drive north to his apartment near the Mountain Springs Data Center. By the time he got there, Wilburn was in a panic and Soundwave wasn't far behind.

Wilburn told him, "Get in here, get inside quick!"

Smith did so. "What's wrong, what happened?"

"You got yourself spotted, you idiot, that's what!"

"What are you talking about?"

"You were spotted on a traffic cam down in Denver! They got a BOLO out on you here, and now they know what kind of a car you drive!"

"Did they get the license number?"

"No, but they got your picture off the traffic cam. We gotta get the hell out of here!"

"Now, wait a minute, don't panic. If we take off running, we'll attract more attention. We can't just ditch the car, if they find it they'll get the registration. It's fine where it is, today, you can't see the parking lot very well from the road and there's no reason for the police to come on the lot. Tonight, we'll have to hide it somewhere it won't be found for a while. Then we need to move on." He sat down at his computer and pulled on his headset.

After a moment, his partner did the same.

Soundwave felt his new symbiotes' near panic and controlled his own.

Well, symbiotes they weren't, of course. But for the time being, they would do. Once they had the implants, the term symbiote might be closer to the proper term. "Echelon: access re-established. Satellite data: access re-established. Shipping company: ready to begin operations. Acquisition of headquarters near airport: in progress."

Wilburn fretted, "How are we gonna move you, boss? Even if we can link up a big enough LAN for you somewhere near the airport, somebody's gonna notice that much data being moved."

Soundwave paused for a full 30 astroklicks. His symbiotes were unwilling to leave him behind. Was it possible that a true symbiote bond could form with these organics?

"Soundwave: has been considering that. Robberies of electronic equipment: increasing in frequency. Soundwave's location: convenient to an access door. Staged robbery: feasible."

"We'll need a truck, but renting or stealing one both present their own share of problems."

"Lugnut: transportation. Located: route without energon detectors. Security cameras at data center: must be disabled."

Smith said, "Let me take care of that. We can assume I'll have to ditch this ID anyway, so it doesn't matter if they track that back to me."

Wilburn said, "We need a better disguise, if they can find us using traffic cams then we're in danger every time we buy gas or walk into a bank or a department store."

"Small holoprojector: desirable. Soundwave: will model possible designs."

-Sidhe Chronicles-

Lennox and Ironhide were the last ones in to the weekly base meeting. Ironhide had just got back from taking Sarah and Annabelle school shopping.

Annabelle had wanted to see her school, so Ironhide had driven them past it and taken the same route back to base that her school bus would take every day. And he had been playing it back in his processor ever since.

Just past the school parking lot where the buses picked up and dropped off the children was an overpass. He saw it as a sniper's nest, or a perfect place for a 'Con to lie in wait for that bus. Beyond that were several city corners. A human bus driver would never know that a 'Con might be lying in wait behind a store building around any of those corners. And outside town? Several miles of barren desert between Mission City and the base perimeter.

"Optimus," he said, "We've got a problem."

"What's that?"

"The base children will be starting school next week. Every day they will be leaving base at the same time, taking the same route to school, then coming home at the same time along the same route every evening. We might as well paint a target on top of that bus."

Lennox was grimly silent, not disagreeing with a word his guardian had said.

Optimus looked back and forth between them. "Suggestions."

Lennox said, "I already considered teaching them here, but in the absence of a specific threat, we can't get that authorized. We need to escort that bus. And we need to work with the bus drivers, too, so if something does happen, they won't panic and get everyone on the bus killed. I'd send 'em to combat driving school if I could."

Optimus said, "Will that not panic the school district?"

Lennox replied, "So...they can say it's too dangerous for our kids to attend school there, then the district will have to pay for tutors to come here instead? Works for me."

Parker said, "We can't keep them restricted to base until they turn 18, sir. As much as I might agree with you in principle, it would be the wrong thing for the kids. I don't want John growing up afraid to leave the bunker."

Lennox said, "If the school district can agree to the security measures that we find necessary, I agree with you, Doc. I don't want Annabelle growing up with a bunker mentality, either."

Optimus said, "If that bus leaves here with the children of this base, we will be escorting it. We cannot force them to allow us to train their driver, but if they refuse then is there any reason we cannot take them to school in a NEST vehicle?"

"If they think there is, they're about to find out anti-terrorism protocols trump school board rules," Lennox replied.

So it was that, from the fall of 2011 onward, the NEST brats rode to and from school in the back of a deuce-and-a-half truck, escorted by at least one Autobot—and, more often than not, that was Ironhide or one of the Big Twins (one of whom would let a kid ride inside if they got 100% on a test [grades went up exponentially], the other of whom didn't want any sticky fingerprints on his interior).

They became part of the scenery, but it was a constant reminder to everyone exactly who those kids were. That they also provided free security for the whole school against anyone who might take it in mind to threaten it was something which, in these troubled times, no cash-strapped school board was going to argue with.

-Sidhe Chronicles-

It was in the quiet that followed putting her older five kids on the truck the first day of school that Monique decided Something Had To Be Done for her smallest.

Bobby Junior was thirteen, and starting the eighth grade. The rest, Jaisyn, Shaundra, and the twins Lamarr and his sister Latonya, were all still in grade school. The twins had been meant to be the last ones—they had thought four kids were plenty, and #5 had been a welcome bonus. D'andre had been a surprise, five years later.

Bobby had just been shipped out on his third tour when she had found out she was pregnant again. She had been scared how he would react—another kid added to the tremendous pressure he was already under—but once he got over the shock he had been as excited as she was. Lennox had even swung it for him to be there via videophone when she'd given birth to D'andre.

D'andre sat on the apartment building's front stoop, carefully lining up his blocks. First all the red ones, then all the yellow ones, then all the white ones, then the blue. Always the same, every time he played with them, and he wasn't happy when they had to go back into their box.

Then a truck backed up, and the usual loud warning beep sounded.

D'andre screamed, clapping his hands over his ears.

Monique ran to check on him; her first thought when faced with a screaming three-year-old was that he had been bitten by a spider or something.

But when she saw the look on his face, it wasn't that. It was...whatever happened to make D'andre's world not a happy place. She knew from experience that trying to pick him up and comfort him would only make things worse.

The truck drove off, and the screaming fit stopped after a few moments.

This was not an extended version of the terrible twos, as his pediatrician at Nellis insisted. This was not just a phase D'andre was going through. Something was wrong with her son, and Monique Epps was determined to find out what it was. She reached for her cell phone and called the pediatrician's office to make an appointment.

-Sidhe Chronicles-

Chip Chase finished a few early morning adjustments to his exercise chair and pulled himself into it, fastening the quick-release strap that held his legs in place. Jazz was out putting his alt form through its paces on the dirt track at the proving grounds, and would meet them at Buzzard Rock. He and Jack Binns did a few stretches then headed out there, a roundabout route that gave them a two-mile run before they got to their destination. Chip let Jack set the pace. The kid was getting better, not quite up to running with a full pack yet, but he was getting there.

Mikaela Banes dropped into pace beside them. "Mind if I run with you?"

"Sure, the more the merrier. At least as far as Buzzard Rock, anyhow. You'll have to ask Diarwen after we get there," Chip said.

"What exactly is it you do out there every morning?"

"Wax on, wax off," Chip replied. He wasn't sure how else to describe the mix of martial arts practice, meditation and discussion that started their day. "It's...interesting. If Diarwen lets you stay, you'll just have to see for yourself."

Chip dropped back to let Kaela drop into place behind Jack. He had a real nice view from there. _Real_ nice.

Kaela's guy alert made her suspicious. She pivoted, and caught Chip in the act of checking out her butt.

The next thing he knew, he got a generous squirt from her water bottle, right between the eyes—and somehow managed to snort water up his nose.

She continued on to Buzzard Rock, leaving Chip reaching for his towel and Jack bent over laughing.

Chip got himself dried out.

Jack teased, "You got it bad, my friend."

Chip spluttered, "What, that—that ice princess? Nah!"

"Suuuuure, Chipster, you just keep telling yourself that."

They got there about the same time as Jazz, who asked Chip, "What happened, man, this is the desert and you're drenched."

He muttered, "Water bottle malfunction."

Jack went into hysterics all over again. Diarwen gave her roommate a quizzical look, and was met by an innocent smile that did not ring true.

Kaela said, "I asked Chip what was going on up here every morning, and he said I'd have to ask you."

"I am not sure we have ever tried to define it before. Betony would probably call it a study circle. We are martial artists, of widely varying styles, but we have in common a habit of morning forms and meditation, and then there is usually time for discussion. It started out as a study of the Wheel of the Year, and has moved from that to various topics surrounding energy field manipulation and so forth which have a bearing on Jazz's situation, and Chip's project. If you have an interest, you are welcome to join us. I do not know if you have any religious objections to such things; I would not wish to put you in an uncomfortable situation if you do."

"I don't particularly have a religion," she replied. "No objections to other folks who do."

Diarwen simply nodded, and claimed a safe space to do her sword dance. Mikaela soon realized that they defined several points along the novice-master continuum; Jack was a rank beginner while Optimus and Diarwen were definitely masters of their arts. Chip and Jazz were very good but not at that rarified level...yet. Mikaela was much closer to Jack's level than Chip's, but she had been in a martial arts club at college, and knew the kata that Chip had him working on.

They were so focused on their form that the noise the bots were making a hundred yards up the canyon faded into the background. If anyone had told Mikaela four years ago that she would ever have ignored that, she would have thought they were nuts. Now it was just part of a normal morning.

Eventually they gathered in a circle in the shade. Mikaela had faint memories of her mother, who had died when she was seven, doing yoga and meditating, but she no longer remembered how to get started.

Diarwen saw at once that she was confused. She took her roommate aside so that they could talk quietly without disturbing the others.

"This is not Buddhist meditation. You do not need to chant a mantra. I will teach you as I was taught; I am told it is the same technique many karateka are also taught."

"Why is Jack sitting like that? On his feet?"

"That is called _seiza, _and it is part of the martial arts tradition that he is learning. Many Westerners find that uncomfortable. It is not necessary unless you choose to follow that tradition, nor is the lotus position—I simply sit cross-legged with my feet underneath. Look for scorpions and spiders before you sit."

Mikaela took the reminder seriously. When they cleared the area for the playground, she hadn't been able to believe how many poisonous creepy-crawlies had been there—and, she thought, she shouldn't have been. She had spent several years now around this area.

The whole idea of concentrating on her breathing and clearing her mind felt strange, but she had chosen a career which was the definition of high-pressure even if she hadn't come to NEST. She really didn't want to stress herself into a heart attack before she turned fifty. Before she knew it, fifteen minutes had passed.

Chip passed a bag of granola bars around to the organics while Jazz and Optimus opened energon cubes.

Chip said, "I have a question about Mabon. I don't mean to be disrespectful—I'm really curious. Y'say the bots are interested in joining in. But this is a harvest celebration, right? I mean, is it just a good reason for a party? What do Cybertronians have to do with crops and stuff?"

Optimus said, "That is a good question, Chip. It is the Sun which has given life to everything that is harvested at this time of the year. By the same token, all of the energon that we receive here also comes from the Sun. Even the energy within that based on petrochemicals originally came from the Sun. As the days shorten, so will our supplies—we too must store reserves or cut back on the amount we consume during the winter months. There is a web of interdependency that connects every living thing on this planet, and we are within that web now. We will be as affected by the Wheel of the Year as any other living creature on Earth."

End Part 9


	10. Chapter 10

Disclaimers in Part 1

Sideswipe put his foot _right_ in it.

Hauled out the other one, and did the same.

Sixty-five feet above the stream bed (and Jazz-and-Chip, as his bet was with Jazz, and Chip seemed to be quite happily serving as Jazz' wheels these days), he reached for the next handhold on a bank the little stream had diligently worked to carve for forty-seven million years.

The first sixty-five feet of it, gently striated in shades of cream, rust, peach, and orange, now bore fair-sized holes, shaped to fit Sides' peds and servos. In time, the small creatures of the canyon and the air would find them compatible as nest holes. Sides, however, was about to use them as a shortcut to disaster.

Chip was frankly gawking, entranced by the sight of a twenty-five foot robot free-climbing. Jazz was a thin mist beside him, doing the same.

Sides' new handhold crumbled in his grip just as he put all his faith in it, and removed one ped to chunk it back in farther up. He hastily drove his ped back into the wall, at a new site, and crunched his toes on the only slab of non-sedimentary rock in the entire wall. He made an emergency grab at the faulty handhold, only to have it crumble further.

At this point, unfairly, Sides insisted, gravity intervened.

Jazz jumped into the wheelchair, and went from zero to twenty in reverse in 0.34 seconds. "Hey!" Chip shouted, thrown hard against his restraints. "What the heck!"

No explanation was necessary. Sideswipe hit the dry earth below the cliff with a resounding "Thooom!" followed by several seconds of absolute dead silence. Then a few distant birds began to ask one another, "What was that?"

Sides didn't stir. Chip raced back to him, expecting to find…who knew what. Who knew what he was going to be able to do about it, either.

Jazz "jumped" to Sides' tall frame when Chip came to a stop beside the bot. He inserted himself into the former frontliner's systems, activated his comms, and called Ratchet.

::Ratchet? This's Jazz. I'm on Sideswipe's frequency because he's taken a pretty good fall out here, and scrambled his circuits.::

::Oh, for Primus' sake. You alone with him?::

::Nah. I came out here with Chip.::

::Okay. You got the field-medic skill, and Chip's got the hands. Do what you can. I'll be there ASAP.:: The connection snapped.

Jazz ran a full diagnostic, then got out—ordinarily he wouldn't have drawn enough energy from Sideswipe to be a hazard, but his friend was injured. "Ah don't know how he fragged himself up so bad, Ah've seen him take longer falls than that pullin' that jet-judo stunt o' his on Screamer's trine."

Chip had gone into crisis mode. He said, "Prioritize the repairs and tell me what needs doin'." He reached behind him to pull his tool kit and gloves from the back of the chair.

"OK, worst is, that reset threw his fuel pump off rhythm an' it's starvin' his spark for power. You gotta get that fixed right now."

Chip slung the tool kit over his back by looping a bungee cord through its handle and over one shoulder. Then he pulled the chair right beside Sideswipe, raised the seat as high as it would go, and climbed hand-over-hand to Sideswipe's chest. "Jazz, you're gonna have to unlatch his chest plates so I can pull 'em open."

Jazz did so. There were energon leaks; Chip told Jazz, "Lemme know if I'm 'bout to drag my legs through more'n a few drops of hot energon—I won't know I'm getting' scalded, an' Ratchet'll strangle us both."

"Ya got that right. Ya oughta be fine, long as ya stay right there."

Chip went to work; he was so engrossed in it he didn't feel his hat falling down Sides' chestplates to the desert floor below. "Dang, I need to reset this, but if it don't start right back up—how long would my chair battery supply his spark an' processor, if it came t' that?"

"Long enough for Ratchet to get here."

"OK, here goes." He disconnected and reconnected the power to Side's fuel pump. It sputtered—then, to their relief, started up again at the proper rate.

There was no time to indulge in that relief. Leaks had to be stopped, or else the leaking lines clamped off until Ratchet could deal with them. Then, the front-liner's cooling system had to be brought back on line before the desert heat caused processor damage.

By the time Ratchet got there, Chip was exhausted, but Sideswipe was stable.

Sunstreaker carried his brother down to the mouth of the canyon, where Ironhide waited with a flatbed trailer. Ratchet transformed and lowered a chair lift to bring Chip and Jazz back to base.

-Sidhe Chronicles-

Sunstreaker glowered down at Chip Chase from a seat beside his twin, who lay inert on a med bay berth. "The Pit are you doing in here?"

Chip stood his ground, though he reached only halfway up Sunstreaker's shin. "I came to see how Sides was. Bot scared the life outta me yesterday."

Chip and Sides both showed the effects of the previous day still: Sides was crumpled here and there, and remained in stasis; Chip was a lot pinker than Parker had approved of around the tops of his ears, the backs of his hands, his forearms, his cheekbones, and the end of his nose. His hat had taken a tumble to the desert sand while he was working on Sides, and he hadn't noticed until Ratchet handed it to him.

Still: he was pink, not red. He'd said as much to Parker, who replied, "It's not the sunburn I'm worried about, it's the incipient melanoma. Here, I've got slides."

She had slides, all right. Chip, released from med bay, proceeded immediately to the small store Mr. Najantdahl, after passing every security check the government possessed going in and a few they'd thought up on the spot, had been allowed to open across the main road from the base's front gate, and bought sunscreen, and a bigger hat with a chin strap. He also considered the purchase of long-sleeved white T-shirts which Parker had suggested (or, if you squinted, insisted upon), but c'mon, man, only sissies wore those.

Final score: Parker 2, Chase 1.

Given the same situation, he'd have done exactly what he did all over again: hell with everything else, get the bot stable.

Sunstreaker sighed, and the servo clenching Sideswipe's worked once, gently. "Ratchet says he's going to be all right. He's a little worried that he hasn't come online yet, but he says he will."

"Good."

"Ratchet also says you saved his life, so you might as well tell me what happened."

"Thank you" was noticeable by its absence from that sentence, but Chip figured that was as much as he was going to get. "Sides was freeclimbin' a rock wall. From what I saw, one of his handholds started to give, an' then he tried to kick a toehold into a place that was too hard to do that. The handhold crumbled the rest of the way, and down he came."

The beautiful yellow face frowned. "Why the slag would he go freeclimbing?"

"He's your brother. You'd be the one to know."

"He had a bet with somebot, didn't he?"

"That he did."

"Who?"

"If I tell you, you gonna pound the lubricant out of them?"

Sunstreaker grimaced. "Ironhide'll return the favor if I do."

"Besides, it ain't that bot's fault."

"Yeah, yeah, I know." Sunstreaker stroked Sides' helm once, gently. "You have any idea what it's like to have the other half of your spark held by an idiot?"

"He ain't an idiot. He's pretty well-liked, actually; guy's got a good heart. Pump. Whatever."

Sides chose that moment to cycle back online. "Gro?" he slurred.

Sunstreaker sighed, and commed Ratchet. "Right here, Sides."

Chip said, "See you later. Glad you're back, Sides," and got out of the way.

Two hours later, thoroughly chastised (though Ratchet had skipped the wrench beatdown this time; several connections interior to Sides' helm weren't in good enough shape to absorb any more impacts, the medic said, which didn't mean he wasn't _sorely tempted_ so don't push it, kid) and completely bored, Sides was reading a datapad.

He was still crumpled. Ratchet had run several tests, unhooked Side's IV, gave him a cube of energon, and excused himself: Skysong was being readied for another surgery.

Noise outside Side's part of med bay resolved itself into two-thirds of the Tiny Trine whirling through the air above his berth.

"Hey, you two. What's goin' on?" the frontliner said, and put down his datapad.

The mechlings, at his gesture of invitation, parked on his chestplate. "You're all crumply," Storm complained.

"Yeah, I am. Fell pretty hard. How are you two?"

Sides was, to borrow a human term, winging it. He had little experience with the Tiny Trine, although he'd held a sleeping sparkling a time or two (and ignored that part of his coding which took up the chant "Want want want!").

The mechlings looked at one another. Then the dark blue one (Storm ...wing, yeah, that was it) said, "Okay. Waiting for Skysong."

"Oh. She's with Ratchet?"

The small faces crumpled, and Sides' fuel pump melted. Or that's what it felt like, anyway. "Come here," he said, and gathered them in.

He let them cry, their tiny arms around his neck, until the yellow one, Starskimmer, snuffled and said, "Ratchet says she be okay, but she been in there long."

"Long time? That's kinda worrying, huh. Even with Ratchet as good as he is, it's still scary."

Stormwing sniffled, and wiped his olfactor on Sides' neck strut. "Yeah. An' this time it's a surg'ry, not jus' a samination."

Sides wondered briefly what Witwicky had to do with it before he sorted that sentence out. "Well, she has to get better from that accident she had, and sometimes the only way to do that is to get Ratchet to help. He helps me a lot, and I'm always better afterward."

Two pairs of optics, both brimming with cleaning fluid, inspected him from his collar struts. "You are?" one of the optics' owners said.

"Always. I'm always better."

"Oh," said one mechling. Both of them settled into him, and then got heavier: they were recharging.

Sides just cuddled them for a while, enjoying their presence. Then he realized that Barricade was likely frantic with worry, pinged him without result, and then pinged Ratchet, who must still have been in surgery, because his line was locked down. Same with Jolt. Now what?

After some more baby-cuddling, he pinged Jazz.

::Sides, my mech! Glad to see you're up. How you feelin'?::

::Fine, fine. Actually I've got the mechlings with me while Sky's in surgery. Would you mind pinging Barricade for me? He didn't respond to me when I pinged him.::

There was a moment's silence, and then Jazz said, ::Bit of a problem there. He's not responding to me either. Just a minute while I sic a human onto that.::

It was eventually Diarwen, not a human, who found Barricade slumped, recharging, in one of Ratchet's waiting-room chairs. "Hi! Barricade!" she shouted, without result.

Sighing, she resigned herself, and began to climb his shin. When she got to his knee, she shouted again: again without result. Pounding his armor produced nothing.

Diarwen scowled, and turned out her pockets. A tissue, slightly used; a power-bar wrapper; the key to her apartment; an interesting rock she'd found in the desert.

The key she dismissed as possible inter-species ballistic missile simply because she had no wish to lose it. She threw the first two at Barricade. No response. She fetched them back and attempted the same, this time with shout attached: he slept on.

The small stone she weighed in her hand: she didn't want to do Barricade any damage. She decided it would do, if she lofted it instead of throwing it hard.

It hit the mech precisely between the optics, and he snorted awake. But his optics were unfocused, and drifting shut again.

He must be exhausted, she realized, and shouted his name again, following it with the apartment key. (Needs must; it fell to the floor.) She realized that she had never before seen _metallic_ bags under the eyes. Those bags didn't look any better on a Cybertronian than they did on an Earther.

"Hi, Barricade!" she shouted. "Wake up! Down here, mech!"

He scowled down at her. "Whaddaya want, squishy?"

She thought she'd never seen anything as terrifying as a twenty-foot pissed-off Cybertronian, short on sleep. But being terrified and reacting to that feeling were two different things, and Diarwen had never given in to the second. "I want to tell you where the hatchlings are," she said. "You may have noticed, they are not with you."

The scowl deepened. "Fine. Where are they?"

"They are in the med bay ward, on Sideswipe's berth with him."

He growled and got up, and she scowled herself at his retreating backplates. "You are welcome!" she shouted, hands on hips, and began to wonder how she was going to get down from the chair.

She settled on a dive into a forward roll, found her key, and went about the rest of her day. Rutting ungrateful impolite ex-Decepticons, anyway, the childless Diarwen thought (translated roughly from the Sidhe).

The rutting ungrateful impolite ex-Decepticon stamped his way to the other side of med bay. When he burst through the door, Sideswipe held one finger to his lip-plates, that useful human gesture for "Don't make so fraggin' much _noise_!"

"I'll take them," he whispered gruffly. "Sorry they bothered you."

"They weren't a bother. Why don't you lie down on another berth and get some sleep? I ain't goin' nowhere, neither are they, and you look terrible, mech."

"Yeah, thanks." Barricade rubbed a servo down his faceplates. "If you're sure."

"I'm sure."

Barricade looked him in the optics. "Thanks, mech."

"Welcome. Get some sleep."

Barricade did that little thing, and woke to the sounds of Sideswipe "reading" a story to the kids, from a data pad which held no such thing, and making oral-cavity sound effects to compensate. He yawned and stretched, and found himself immediately the host of a blue-and-yellow necktie.

"Cade! CadeCadeCade! You was rechargin' an' Sides's readin' to us! You come listen, too!"

And this is how, when Ratchet finished Skysong's surgery and carried her, still asleep, into the ward, Sideswipe, suddenly abandoned by his collarful of hatchlings, put down a datapad and smiled at Barricade, saying, "See you later."

Barricade stood up, and resisted the urge to ask the silver swordsmech how much it was worth to him to ensure that Barricade kept to himself the news that Sideswipe could make up a rather interesting story for hatchlings on the fly, and then pretend to read it to them, _with_ sound effects. "Thanks again. Say…" Barricade found his toes very interesting, suddenly. "Wanna spar some time?"

"Yeah, I would. Let me escape Ratchet, and I'll ping you."

"Deal. Thanks again, Sideswipe."

Sides nodded, and picked up his datapad once more. It proved to be much less interesting without an audience, or the sound effects.

-Sidhe Chronicles-

Ratchet checked Skysong's monitors. She was doing fine, and once the attachment points of her internal wing braces had self-repaired to the point that she could begin to move them, he brought her out of medical stasis into normal recharge.

That accomplished, he pinged Barricade with the information that she would wake up shortly.

She had started to stir a little when the big black-and-white arrived. Skimmer and Stormy joined her on the berth, chirping excitedly when they realized her wing braces were gone.

Ratchet private-channeled them, ::She can't fly yet, so don't pester her about it!::

Two tiny signals chorused, ::Yes, Ratchet.::

He shook his head as they snuggled up to their sister. It didn't take long for her to finish waking up, not with a brother chirping in each audial.

She was overjoyed that the awkward, uncomfortable brace was gone, and she could stretch and otherwise move her wings a little. Seekers, and seeker-kin like door-wingers, depended on the sensors in their wings, as well as using them to express emotion.

Ratchet checked her range of motion. As was to be expected after having been in the external fixator for so long, she was very stiff and sore and very vocal about that. But unlike certain silver twins, she didn't whine unless she had something to whine about. He explained what was going on by transmitting pictures to her and Barricade of the internal fixators, then told her, "These let you fold your wings or spread them out. But you can't flap them. They would come out of joint or break again, so the braces won't let you do that. You can make them stronger by trying to flap them, but they won't actually move that way."

She tried it, and found that a loud whirring noise resulted, which delighted all three sparklings, but not Barricade, who gave Ratchet a very dirty look. He was going to be hearing that noise a lot for a while.

Ratchet smirked, not having forgotten all the extra work Barricade had made for him over the vorns. He gave Song a rust stick, then of course had to give one to the each of the mechlings as well.

"Keep her in your apartment today," he said to Barricade, "and make sure to oil all her wing joints carefully tonight when you bathe her. That will help with the stiffness, but she's going to have to work most of that out on her own. Starting tomorrow, she can run and play as much as she wants. Movement will help more than anything. Get Flareup to put her supplements in a batch of energon goodies. I want to be sure she gets them all, and she's going to need the extra energy as well."

"Right," Barricade said. He picked up Song and let her magnalock to his chest plates, then told the mechlings to come along.

Ratchet checked on Sideswipe, who was swinging the leg he hadn't bent into a pretzel off the side of the berth. "How do you feel?"

"OK, I guess. What did I do anyway?"

"You hit your fraggin' helm on a rock and fritzed yourself. It's a wonder you didn't end up with a permanent glitch. If Chip hadn't been there, with Jazz to tell him what to do, we would have lost you," Ratchet told him bluntly. "Unmaker take it, Sides, you'd have killed yourself climbing a fraggin' _rock_ and you'd have taken your brother with you."

"It was less than thirty meters to the top of the Pit-be-damned cliff!" Sideswipe snapped, crossing his arms. "I'm not stupid, Ratchet, no matter what you might think. Sometimes an accident is nothing but a fraggin' accident!"

"Free climbing was dangerous on Cybertron. It's even more dangerous on an organic world like this one, where the rock layers all have different properties. Taking risks in the war was one thing. Doing it now, when you both have your whole lives ahead of you, is _stupid_."

"Neither one of us is going to sit in the corner and watch dust collect," Sideswipe replied, quiet and reasonable for a change, which abrupt deviation from "normal for Sideswipe" made Ratchet stop ranting and listen. "Sometime, somewhere, one of us is going to offline and take the other along for the ride. That's how it goes. We understand that. I think sometimes, you don't. If we never take risks, if we waste all our time hiding from anything that might go wrong, we aren't living. We might burn out, but we won't rust out. Why did we fight a war at all, if it wasn't so we could live now that it's over?"

Ratchet threw his servos in the air. "Do what you want—you will anyway. You can go, but don't stress any of your systems beyond a yellow alert for the next orn. I'll want to see you then for a recheck, unless something starts throwing alerts, then you need to come straight back here, at high speed. Got it?"

"I got it."

Sides made his escape. Ratchet shook his head, then started cleaning his medbay to prepare for the next invasion of complete fraggin' _idiots_. Probably, with his luck, in matched sets of two.

-Sidhe Chronicles-

Sam and Epps were thankful to get out of Florida and back to NEST HQ in Washington. After making their reports, Sam drove Epps to Andrews to catch a flight back to Nevada, then he finally had the chance to do something about the phone he'd found.

He jogged up to Simmons' office. The New Yorker had his braced leg up on an upended wastepaper basket, a pair of forearm crutches rested against his desk. He was munching peanuts as he worked his way through a stack of police reports that might indicate Decepticon activity. He had a NEST cell stuck to his ear, talking to Jazz about one of them.

Sam knocked on the door frame. "Got a minute?"

"Sure, pull up a chair."

Sam did and tossed the phone on the desk. "Thanks. You know anything about phones?"

"You talk on 'em."

"I mean, can you download stuff off of them?"

He looked at it. "Cheapo burner phone. Sure, I can crack this. Where'd you get it?"

"Do you want to know?"

He looked around, weighing the benefits of ignorance versus information, and saw no one watching. "Inquiring minds."

"It was on the couch where those people killed themselves."

"I thought, murder-suicide."

"It didn't look like she objected. I think he just drew the short straw to fire the gun. It turns out, the lady had terminal cancer. But if he made a call on this phone before he did it, or if someone called him..."

"Why didn't you give this to the cops?"

"I didn't remember sticking it in my pocket until after the explosion, when we were back in our hotel room. I don't think they were all that interested in investigating it, they just wanted to mark it down as a murder-suicide and close the case. The CIA guys were even less interested. When I thought about giving it to them, I was afraid it would get swept under the rug. It might be a lead to Helix."

Simmons told Jazz, "Something's come up, I'll call you back in a few minutes." Then he dug in his desk drawer for the right cable to attach the phone to his laptop. That took longer than accessing its files and getting into the phone company records for more information about the last call.

"He called another burner phone, Sam. The call went to a tower in downtown Sequoia Falls, California."

"Where's that?"

"Some hole in the wall town on the north coast I never heard of before," Simmons told him.

"What do we do now?"

"I'll flag the other phone. It's been used several times all over that little town. If they didn't throw it away after the Darnells died, we might pick it up again. But I think you'll have to go out there and nose around. You're the one who stole the phone, you get to report this to Charlotte."

"I didn't mean to steal it."

"It just jumped in your pocket on its own?"

"I don't mean that. It just kinda happened—and then there was the bomb—and then the CIA guys showed up. For all we know, Darnell could have called an old friend to say goodbye."

"That's possible. Doesn't mean it _didn't_ have anything to do with Helix, though."

Sam knew he needed a few more pieces before he could make sense of this puzzle. He took a deep breath and trudged down the hall to confess to Mearing that he had liberated evidence from a crime scene. She was not going to be happy with him. At all.

He wondered what his pregnant wife would say when he showed up at their apartment with his ass, which he expected to have handed to him by Mearing in the near future, tucked neatly into the crook of one elbow.

-Sidhe Chronicles-

"You _son_ of a bitch," said Bobby Epps, curling one hand into a fist.

The physician raised both hands, palm-out. "Hey, I'm sorry," Dr. Bruttamano said. "I know it's bad news." He also knew he was facing an Army Ranger.

But "bad news" didn't cover it. That Bobby's and Monique's youngest child, their "surprise package" as they called D'andre, was probably autistic was catastrophic, soul-changing, life-wrenching information. And this creep called it "bad news"? At that point, Monique Epps abandoned any idea of chastising her husband for his language, and scowled at the doctor herself.

Bruttamano did not burst into flame or dissolve, but he grew pink around the ears. "I suggest that you institutionalize the boy. His problems will only get worse over time. He'll destroy your marriage, and wreck your other kids' childhood. Get out while you can." The doctor stood, and took his own advice.

When the door shut behind Bruttamano's stooped shoulders, Bobby Epps unclenched his fist. "No. We aren't going to do that. I'll ask Parker to recommend somebody else. How has that creep stayed in practice? He's got the bedside manner of Ironhide!"

Monique, who didn't know either, shook her head. "Come on, Bobby, let's go home."

Later that day there was a knock on Parker's door. "Hey, Bobby, come on in," she said, turning her chair to face the visitor's seat.

"Doc. Hey, one of the docs over at Universal Medical Care gave us some bad news the other day, and we wanna get another doctor's opinion. Anybody you recommend among the pediatricians in Vegas?"

"Yeah, I really like the woman who sees Johnny. Are you sure it's a gatekeeper you need, though? If you need a specialist, Tricare says I have to refer you myself."

"One of our kids might be autistic."

"Ah." She drew drew a prescription pad to her, and wrote several lines on it. "Any of these people might do. See if you can get in to see the last one, though, because she's not only good, she's compassionate."

They were lucky, Bobby and Monique; the doctor had a free hour, first of the day's appointments, two weeks out.

Monique had warned this new pediatrician that she was bringing D'andre in, and what that entailed. They said they would get him into an exam room the moment he arrived.

D'andre still was not happy. His day was being disrupted. He wanted to put his blocks in order, but he didn't have them. His mother had made sure that he had the smaller-but-identical set with him in his car seat, but they weren't _his_ blocks.

In the back seat, D'andre set up a keening whine. His parents exchanged glances, and Bobby Epps exited the freeway.

Monique got into the back with D'andre, and arranged his blocks out of order on the little tray jiggered for his car seat. That was more than D'andre could bear, and he began to flail and thrash.

And scream. Monique passed Bobby a set of ear plugs, put her own in.

By the time they got out of the car, D'andre had screamed himself into the exhausted sobbing of a child who could see no future wherein he got what he so desperately needed. Monique's heart always curled in on itself a little when they got to this stage; Bobby's did too, she knew.

But Bobby was a Ranger. He picked his son up, cradled him gently against his shoulder, and let him wail; by the time they walked into Hospital Giganticus and found the way to the pediatrician's office, D'andre had a thumb in his mouth, and was hiccupping sniffles.

That didn't mean he wouldn't start up again with very little provocation. But this respite for them all allowed Monique to get to reception in the doctor's office, twelve minutes ahead of their appointment, which meant that they got into the exam room. Surrounded by silence and calm, D'andre began to recover himself.

When the pediatrician walked in, he was ordering the smaller blocks Monique had scooped into her purse. When she brought them out and gave them to D'andre, Bobby looked at her with admiration and said, "Damn, I married a smart woman."

"I thought I married a smart man, too, but you keep cussin' in front of the children."

Bobby grinned at her, and the doctor's knock sounded on the door.

"Hello," said the middle-aged woman, shutting the door behind her. "I'm Dr. Callas." She went to the sink in the room, and washed her hands.

"Bobby Epps, my wife Monique, and our son D'andre."

"Nice to meet you," said the doctor, taking a seat and pulling her pen out of the pocket protector. "So why are we seeing D'andre today?"

Monique began the tale. The oversensitivity to loud noise. The obsession with order. The unwillingness to make eye contact. The odd, fiddling patterns of play. The lack of social interaction with his large, loud, loving family.

"And all of my kids," Monique summed up, "went through a phase where peek-a-boo was the most exciting game in the world. D'andre hasn't…not by the time he was two and a half, and all of the others outgrew it around then."

D'andre had an inability to tolerate life, in short, in ways that kept his parents hopping and were beginning to impact the other children. "It's hard for them to do homework when D'andre is having problems," Monique said simply. "And they can't do anything to help him, which is harder yet."

"Well, let's start with the obvious," the physician replied, rising and going to the examination table. "Hello, D'andre."

D'andre continued sorting his blocks. Dr. Callas frowned, and said, "D'andre?"

The little boy did not so much look at her. She went to the sink and washed her hands, drying them thoroughly on a towel and rubbing them together, to warm them. She sank down to D'andre's level, and smiled at him.

He averted his head.

Then she said, gently, "I'm going to pick you up, D'andre," and reached for him.

Bobby's son screamed at her touch. Screamed when she looked in his ears, in his eyes. Screamed louder when she warmed the stethoscope in one hand, and put it to his chest. (But even a screaming child has to take a breath now and then, and during that breath, she could hear his heart beat, sound as a bell.)

Once she removed herself from D'andre's immediate vicinity, the boy calmed. He didn't look to either parent, shrugged himself out from under Monique's comforting hand, and returned to his blocks.

Dr. Callas flipped a few pages back in her file. "D'andre was healthy two weeks ago and I'm reluctant to duplicate tests which may upset him without point. Let me ask you, does he enjoy movement? Being swung or bounced on your knee?"

D'andre's parents exchanged looks. "The few times we've tried that," Bobby said, "it seemed to overwhelm him. He doesn't really like to be picked up."

"Okay. How did he react to today's disturbance in his daily routine?"

"He wasn't happy. The blocks he's playing with? He has a bigger set at home. He prefers them."

"If he wants a physical object, does he ask for it?"

"No. He points."

"He points," D'andre said, and went back to his blocks.

"Can you usually pinpoint a reason for his distress when he's upset?"

"Not always," Bobby said. Monique added, "And sometimes it's noises that don't upset the other kids, like the alarm on a truck backing up. That noise makes him crazy. He'll cover his ears and scream until it stops."

The doctor nodded. "Does he play with the other kids? Normally, about this time, we start to see tag-alongs: whatever the older kids are doing, the younger ones want to be involved."

"No," Monique said, after glancing at Bobby. "D'andre prefers to play alone."

"He's just out of the terrible twos. Has he stopped tantruming?"

"No. He started early, about a year and a half, and he's never really stopped."

The doctor watched D'andre for a moment. "I've seen for myself that he doesn't care to make eye contact. Is that present at home, as well?"

"Yes. If you make eye contact with him, he breaks it immediately."

"Have you had cause to wonder if he's deaf? Spoken to him, but he ignores you?"

"Yeah," said Bobby, "but he's not deaf. We had him tested for that when he began to ignore us. His hearing's fine."

"Hmmm," said the doctor, and tapped her short nails against the clipboard she held. "We may have to investigate whether D'andre suffers from autism. He's showing many of the signs, I'm afraid."

Bobby and Monique looked at one another. "Autism?" Bobby finally said. "Isn't that..."

"It's a spectrum of psychological difference that isn't well understood, as yet," the doctor said. "As you've experienced, it's fairly disruptive to family life. And you have other children to consider, too―" she leafed through the file―"five, it says here."

"Yeah. D'andre's our youngest."

"Well," Dr. Callas said, "this is going to require some thinking on your parts. D'andre can be helped at this point; when he's a little older, we'll be better able to pinpoint where, exactly, he falls on the spectrum. But he is outside the range of 'normal' in his reactions to sensation, and will need more help than many children do to adapt to school and work. As you may imagine, treatments vary widely depending on the severity of the child's affliction, up to and including institutionalization."

"No!" said both D'andre's parents together.

The doctor didn't smile. She had seen too many parents start here, and end up, ten years later, with their marriage destroyed and their other children psychological basket cases, finally, when it was too late to be of much help to the autistic, putting him or her into the hands of professionals. "We're a long way from there," she said patiently. "Let's let D'andre tell us what he needs. I'll have my staff assemble some reading material for you."

"Thank you," Monique said, with a troubled glance at her husband. Bobby was about to explode. "Would you have it mailed, please, as we need to get D'andre back to his regular routine."

Monique waited until they were out of the hospital, and D'andre seemed to be happy with his blocks in his car seat. "Bobby…what's going on?"

Her husband clenched his hands on the steering wheel. "I wanted to hit that bitch. I wanted to pound her into hamburger. Never mind that she's a woman. I still wanted to do that. I will never allow a child of ours to be institutionalized. Never."

Monique sighed. "I know that, baby," she said. "You will never leave any of us. Ever."

That affirmation of his identity calmed Bobby. "So what do we do, Mo? What's best for D'andre?"

"We can't know yet," his wife said, with the calmness that had first attracted him to her, and then convinced him that she was The One. "So we let D'andre tell us what he needs. And then, Bobby, if staying with us makes him unhappy, we find a place for him to live that makes his life better. If he just can't live with us, and he tears up the other kids too, I won't say he has to stay. He's fine as long as he's happy. When he can't be happy with us no more, it's time to let him go into his own life."

"Never."

"I know, baby, I know. It ain't what I want either. But we gotta put D'andre, and the others, ahead of ourselves on this one. You know?"

"I know, Mo, but you can't do this alone. You won't have to. I retired once, I can do it again. If it comes to that, I'll take care of our son 24/7 so you can have time for the rest of the children. If he needs help we can't give, we'll get it for him, but I ain't puttin' him in a _facility_ somewhere unless he needs some kind of round the clock high-tech medical care that he absolutely cannot have at home."

That was no empty promise, she knew. Bobby had spent the last two weeks reading everything he could find on autism, and making a battle plan.

"We won't live forever, and what happens to him then?"

"I haven't figured it out that far ahead, baby, but trust me, I will, soon's I can. A long time before we start pickin' out rockin' chairs. I'm gonna start by talkin' to the Colonel and see if I can get transferred to somethin' where I won't have to take as many chances. Can't afford to be Denzel fu-raggin' Washington anymore."

"Honey, as far as I'm concerned, figurin' out what we're gonna do for D'andre is more heroic than anythin' you could do with a gun in your hand."

"Yeah. Well. Maybe. I didn't become somebody's Dad to bail, Mo, and I won't now."

"I know, baby. I know. But givin' up the Rangers, Bobby?"

He squeezed her fingers gently. "Will if I have to babe, for you and D'andre."

End Part 10


	11. Chapter 11

Disclaimers in Part 1

Sideswipe was _bored_. It was a lovely afternoon, a balmy 87 degrees—practically sweater weather for the humans, after the triple digits of the last few days—and he was still on light duty. Which meant, he was stuck on the monitors.

Optimus was in his office with the door closed, in a teleconference with General Morshower and the SecDef. Sides figured it was probably about their lack of results in finding the rest of the Decepticons. Well, Sides figured, the FBI and the combined police and state patrol forces of the United States had a lot more boots on the ground than NEST did, and Jazz wasn't the only one monitoring the Internet—no one else had spotted them either!

He sighed. They probably weren't the only ones having a bonfire built under their afts, either. The President wanted results before there was another disaster. He'd be pressuring everyone.

A yellow flag on one of the perimeter alarms riveted his attention, but when he checked the monitor, it was just Brains and Wheelie checking the fence. They had to get right up on top of one of the alarms before it started to register at all.

Sides ex-vented. He had volunteered to check the fence, but Ratchet had nixed that. He'd said if Sides got out there, he'd get distracted, have an "Oh, look, a chicken!" moment, and do something stupid like climb another rock stack. By the time Sides had looked up the chicken reference and figured out he'd just been insulted, Ratchet had escaped into medbay and Optimus had already put him on monitor duty.

Maybe it would be a good idea to let his helm self-heal a while longer, if he got pwned that easily by the medic.

He slouched in his chair, flipping through the monitors. Sand...sand...more sand...a lizard! Sand...sand...sand... If he had been human, he would have yawned. The leg he had twisted up hurt, and so did the back of his helm. He fidgeted, trying to find a more comfortable position to sit.

Complaining about it would necessitate a trip to medbay, and another lecture from Ratchet. He'd listened to enough of those to last the rest of the vorn. He wasn't leaking or anything like that, so Ratchet wouldn't have an excuse to yell at him for not coming back to medbay. He hoped if he toughed it out, it would stop hurting on its own. Anyhow, when this fraggin' shift was over, he could go back to his berth, and maybe his brother had a little high-grade. That would take the edge off so he could recharge.

He got to the cameras that were set up around the base itself. Those were a little more interesting—there was always the possibility that someone might be doing something funny or embarrassing. Maybe even blackmail material. After all, he'd once caught Flareup … no, best not to think about that. And now, the cameras showed nothing that amounted to anything, either.

Prime's office door slid open and he came out, still settling his fields after whatever argument that meeting had included. Sides doubted he would ever find out what had been said. Discussions among the high command often got heated, but whatever decisions were reached, they would present a united front when it was over.

Obama ran a tight ship. The difference between that, and the Council during the last days of Cybertron, was like night and day. Sides decided he had better enjoy it while it lasted, though, since American presidents only held the office for four to eight years—less than a tenth of a vorn at most. Who would lead after that was anyone's guess, and the one after that? A complete mystery.

Optimus told him, "If you need a break, I can watch the monitors for a while."

"Thanks, it might help to move around a little. Do you want anything while I'm up?"

"Not right now, thanks."

Sideswipe logged off, and started to get up.

Something gave way in his leg with a loud "ping"—one of the welds broke, letting the wheel turn sideways in his foot. He lost his balance and would have fallen with all his weight on the bad leg if Optimus hadn't caught him.

Sides muted his vocalizer to keep from screaming out loud.

Optimus carefully straightened his knee, assessing the damage. ::Ratchet, could you come to Admin, please? Sideswipe has a problem with his injured leg.::

::Fraggit, I was afraid of that. I'll be right there. Don't let him put any weight on it until I get a chance to look at it. If you can straighten the wheel assembly without causing any more damage, it will relieve the pain.::

Optimus saw that the whole wheel assembly had slipped sideways, along a transformation path. The only damage seemed to be the failed weld. He curled his servos around the ankle, supporting it as he carefully rotated the assembly back into place.

The relief was immediate. Sides onlined his vocalizer. "How bad did I frag it up this time?"

"The inboard plate split along that weld, and that let the wheel assembly turn exactly as if you were transforming. The only damage seems to be to the plate. I'm sure Ratchet can fix this without much trouble."

"He wanted to replace that armor plate, but we're short on the supplies. I wanted him to try to repair the old one first. Maybe he'll be able to salvage the two broken pieces for someone's youngling frame," Sides replied.

But then Optimus felt the same flash of energy that had occurred when he was examining Ironhide after his fall. This time, though, it was much stronger.

Sides yelped as energy arced between them, not just re-welding the split plate, but reworking it: when the arc died, there was no sign of a weld.

A strong smell of ozone drifted through the monitor room, and the plate began to radiate the heat of that energy. It was not quite hot enough to cause damage to lines and components beneath itself, and not quite hot enough to be painful.

Sideswipe probed at the ankle. "Optimus, what did you just do? My sensors aren't reporting any damage any more. Even that processor-ache is gone."

"I have no idea, Sideswipe."

Ratchet came in. "Let me see."

Both of them still staring at the fully repaired injury, they moved to give Ratchet some room.

The medic stared, probed (which should have had Sides singing several octaves above his usual range, but didn't hurt at all), rotated a–thing–out of one index finger, and performed the Mysterious Rites of the Medic for a solid two minutes before he gently set the leg down, and glared at both his patient and his Prime.

"I don't appreciate being summoned over here for a practical joke. Nor do I know how you've managed to replace that leg, Sideswipe, but I am Seriously Not Amused."

Both his patient and his Prime heard those capitals, and gaped at him. "It wasn't a joke, Ratchet," Optimus said finally. "Sideswipe stood up and he and I both heard the noise that weld to his inline plate made when it gave. His wheel pivoted as it does when he transforms, and he almost fell."

"It hurt like slag, too," Sideswipe offered.

Ratchet's optics stopped smoldering. "Okay. Tell me exactly what happened. Prime, will you take the monitors again? Sideswipe, your side first, please."

Sideswipe recounted exactly what had occurred, down to and including his own muting of his vocalizer.

At the end of his recitation, Ratchet sighed. "All right. Take the monitors, please. Optimus?"

"Yes, Ratchet?"

"How long have you known you could heal?"

Optimus, stunned, gaped at him again. Ratchet thought that the Prime was a fine-looking mech, even with his mouth hanging open, as did Sideswipe (who was of course watching them in the reflective surface of the monitors), but what he said was, "I take it you didn't know?"

"I–no, I didn't. I think the first time it happened, though, I was with Ironhide. He took a fall that put that rickety ankle of his out of joint again, as well as having an energon leak. I felt the energy arc between us, just as it did with Sideswipe. The leak stopped. I tried to persuade him to see you, but he had plans that night with Chromia, and he was not willing to risk compromising them."

Ratchet ex-vented heavily. "I won't waste my time with remonstrating with you, or with him, over that. You never took the battery of tests which will show you what your specific gifts as Prime are, did you?"

Optimus might have smiled. "Not only did I not take them, Ratchet, this is the first time I've heard of their existence."

"I should have known. But after the disaster that was Altihex, I just figured that healing wasn't among your constellation of talents. I could have used your presence then, and I thought that if you could heal, you'd have helped out."

"And if I had known, I would have doubtless been able to save a number of lives through the vorns." Optimus sighed. "I'm sorry, Ratchet. Do we have access to the tests? I'd rather not have any more surprises that cost lives."

"No, we don't. Its administration and the discussion of its results with the Primes was a function of the priests."

"Slag it. That can't be allowed to happen again. Not with us, and not with whatever, and whoever, is left on Cybertron."

"I'm not going to disagree with you there." The healer thumped Sideswipe on the back of the helm, quite gently for himself. "I'm glad you're okay, you glitch."

"Um, thanks."

"Welcome." The healer huffed himself into readiness to go.

But Optimus couldn't let that happen yet. "Ratchet, would you have some time to speak with me after my shift is over today?"

"Always, Optimus. But I've already told you everything I know about the Primes' abilities to heal."

"Could Ultra Magnus do so?"

"Yes. He was called in a few times while I was in training. Guardian Prime didn't have the gift, and I don't believe Zeta Prime did either." Ratchet sorted through those old memory files. "Ultra Magnus was always exhausted. Granted, neither Ironhide nor Sideswipe here had extensive damage—though in your case, Sideswipe, you had a small helm injury in _exactly_ the wrong place. But doing this doesn't seem to have affected you much at all, Prime. I remember Magnus telling the Masterhealer that he wasn't calling him in often enough, and the Masterhealer told him that he needed to recover."

"And then he was assassinated."

"Yes."

And Diarwen chose that moment to rap on the door of the monitor room.

"Optimus, did you – oh, excuse me. I can come back at another time."

Prime smiled at her, and Ratchet glowered. She, for her part, simply nodded at him.

Optimus said, "No need. What did you wish?"

"I will need to reschedule the discussion of energetic healing we were going to have. It seems that Barricade wishes me to watch the hatchlings during that time, and I am rather in need of that treat at the moment."

"Of course."

Ratchet said, using a tone that made both Optimus and Sideswipe blink, "I'll take that shift, if you don't mind, Diarwen."

The Sidhe turned to face the medic. "In fact, Ratchet, I was rather looking forward to it, so I'll not trouble you."

"It's no trouble."

"Nor for me. And if their guardian trusts me with them, you need not worry about it, aye?"

The medic glowered at her, and said, "Would you excuse me? One of Killstrike's boys has done himself some damage."

Prime nodded. "See you later."

The medic responded only with a nod, and left.

Sideswipe craned his neck backward, and said, "Thanks, Optimus, if I didn't say that before."

"Welcome. Just what I needed..."

"To be thanked? I know we don't say it often enough."

"Oh, I didn't mean that, though you're welcome, of course. No, I meant that now there's yet another thing on base that only I can do."

Diarwen blinked at him. "What did I miss?"

"Apparently," Optimus said, "I can heal bots by touching them."

Diarwen said, "I had better ask Ratchet to take the shift, then. That healing circle is more urgent than I had thought."

Optimus blinked at her. "It's only happened twice so far, and I've done no damage that I know of."

"Not to the recipients, no, but it is important to learn how to channel that energy rather than using up your own. That could badly endanger you. I shall see if I can get Flareup to take the hatchlings."

Sideswipe startled them both by saying, "Can I do that instead?"

-Sidhe Chronicles-

At the end of his own shift, Optimus found Ratchet.

"Prime," the medic said formally, from his seat in front of his own desk. "Come in. Have a cube of high-grade with me?"

"Certainly." Optimus said, and waited patiently through the Ceremony of Pouring. Touching his own cube to Ratchet's, he said, "To old friends, and new," and Ratchet nodded before applying the high-grade internally.

"You, Ironhide, and Chromia are the oldest among us. I'll be asking this of them as well. What do you know of the duties of a Prime, besides being a war leader?"

Ratchet paused, and twirled his cube in his fingers. "Besides the Temple rites? You already have my memories of the rituals that I saw. I know that there were some things involving the All-Spark. I was never in the Temple when any of that was going on. Once, when I was very young, the Primes were asked to intervene in a dispute between two Great Houses of Vos, because one of the Vosian priests told them it could only be resolved by the hand of Primus. That's how the leader of Starscream's parental trine became Winglord. Sometimes, the Primes would teach as well, when Primus ordained a code update and they would give it to the craftmasters, and make sure they understood it, so that it could be passed on to the rest of us. That only happened twice in my memory, and both times, it was Guardian Prime who disseminated the updates. Like healing talent, that may have been one of the talents that young Primes were tested for, and trained in if they had the talent for it. All that was part of the Temple education that you should have gotten, and only the priests knew what they would have taught you."

The two mecha shared a troubled silence, as once again they were confronted by the knowledge of just how much they, all of the surviving Cybertronians, had lost.

The silence was broken by Diarwen's arrival. Once again, Optimus noticed Ratchet stiffen and close off his fields. Diarwen bowed respectfully to both of them. "Prime, as you requested, I am here to advise."

"Thank you, Diarwen."

He had seen enough nobles enter a rival's territory offering a glyph of truce to know what he was seeing now. Both of them were icily professional. Diarwen maintained a proper spacing, taking a seat on a counter-top far enough from both of them that her fields could not casually affect either of theirs.

Ratchet asked, "What do you know about how Prime was able to heal Ironhide and Sideswipe?"

She replied, "It sounds like magical healing to me, at least from the description that I have of what happened."

Optimus asked, "What can you tell me about magical healing?"

"Usually, it facilitates natural healing, so that wounds heal, or patients recover from illnesses, in less time and with fewer complications that would otherwise have been expected. Much of that involves the use of magical herbs or crystals, and many humans who are not at all magical themselves have preserved the knowledge of using these gifts of the gods. What has happened here, though, seems to be the use of magical energy to heal instantaneously. That requires the ability to channel and control a great deal of mana―magical power," she said, seeing Ratchet's brow-plates wrinkle.

"Among our people, the ability has been confined to the Primes."

Diarwen said, "I am not surprised that Primus has chosen to bestow His gifts in that way."

Optimus nodded. "You mentioned a possible danger."

"Yes. Healing, like many high-level magical functions, can use a tremendous amount of energy. Trying to power a healing with your own life-force, as most beginners do, can be extremely dangerous if you do not know what you are about. It would be very possible to burn yourself out, as I did, or even to expend so much energy that none is left to power one's own body. As you may imagine, that is fatal. You must learn to channel the energy around you to heal severe injuries. Also, in organics, there is also a danger of healing a contaminated wound, which can lead to a severe infection a few days later. Knowing when to stop can be important for many reasons."

"Can you teach me?"

"Yes, at least up to the point where my disability interferes. I can teach you to work safely."

Ratchet asked, "Is there anyone who can teach him everything he needs to know?"

"My friend Moonsilver could, and I am sure that she would be happy to do so, should you wish to go and study with her for a while. I would encourage that. Alternatively, perhaps Adele Hempstead either can, or knows someone who can."

Optimus said, "I would prefer to learn from you until you no longer feel qualified to teach me. You are here; it would be the least disruptive to my duties."

"As you will," Diarwen agreed, as respectfully as she would have done when speaking to her queen in days of old.

That was logic that Ratchet could not counter. He quietly fumed, and bit his glossa. Their discussion complete, Diarwen absented herself.

Optimus didn't try to hide his troubled field from the old medic, but he knew that interfering would likely have untoward results. He wished there was a way to help resolve the tension between the two without making things worse.

He wondered wistfully if Ironhide's cure of banging their helms together would be useful, but on the whole, given the size difference, he thought not.

-Sidhe Chronicles-

Skysong was quite happy to stand on the ground, or with her pedal digits wrapped around a climbing frame, and flap as much as her internal fixators allowed—this was, in her view, a reasonable substitute for flying when she could not be in her aircraft. Currently, she was watching her brothers as they did aerial stunts for her pleasure, and doing her very best to get the entire climbing/perching/sunning/shading structure for hatchlings to take flight with her.

Her brothers were close by, if usually at higher altitude.

Stormwing folded his wings close to his body, and circled the clothesline Sara Lennox had just left on the long walk back to quarters, empty clothes basket on her hip. She paid no attention; Barricade was currently on hatchling-watch, and Stormy was a couple of hundred feet up.

Clotheslines are usually not permitted on military bases. But running dryers made the humans' quarters into ovens which not even the heavy-duty air-conditioning could ameliorate. Not only were the humans unable to sleep if laundry had been dried, the next day the heat had not dissipated.

Something had to be done. Two nights without sleep was more than enough for Will Lennox; after talking with Optimus, he'd phoned Mearing, explained the situation, and she'd run the paperwork up the line.

Therefore, the day after Will's phone call, the playground, the quarters, and the area between them were made off-limits to vehicles of any kind, partially to reassure Skysong, and partially to keep them un-entangled with the newly-permitted (and very swiftly erected) clothes lines.

Anyone who does laundry knows that dryers are hell on constructed underwear. Sara was intelligent, and so she pinned her sheets to the outside lines, and her towels to the inside ones, with the bras spaced between the towels. The towels pulled the line, and the bras, below the sheets. That way her 32Cs weren't on display to half the base.

Had she known that the mechlings considered this a challenge, it's very likely she would have hung them to dry in the bathroom, even though Will _hated_ that. Mostly because, when he saw the blasted torture devices there, he wanted to go take her out of the one she was currently wearing. For comfort reasons, of course, although Close Encounters of the Discomfort-Removal Kind usually morphed into something else rather quickly.

Stormwing had been planning this for a week. He was pretty sure he had thought it through correctly; he had no way of knowing, or telling anyone else (including Ratchet, who would have been fascinated), that the funny tickle inside his helm while he did this was the result of new neural connections being forged.

And of course, he had no way to know that it was these new connections which allowed him to solve this 32C-sized problem.

Once Sara was out of grab range, he stooped on the clothesline. Sara hung her bras up by the straps, which meant that the straps formed an incomplete "H" shape, and the bottom bar of the H, the cups, hung nearest the ground.

At the ends of his wings, his claws were the perfect size to catch the drying line, his speed sufficient to power him around the line in a three-sixty and through the void between straps, and his wingwork swift enough to snap those wings through the straps by briefly joining them over his head, which allowed him to make one fierce downstroke and clear the line containing the sheets.

Wearing Sarah's best black underwire, he swooped into the sky. He had a little trouble making height; he'd flown through the lingerie with the cups facing out from his body, and so they acted not so much as airfoils as airborne sea anchors.

Skysong squawked at him when he paused overhead, and pointed her wings at him. He returned the gesture, and Sara's brassiere dropped neatly from him to her.

It smelled like her friend Sara, so Sara must use one; whatever it was, it made Skysong feel like an adult-frame, not a hatchling, to wear it. She preened.

Skimmer, meanwhile, had figured out how his brother did what he did. He wasn't to know that his processor was a few neural connections, and his frame a day of hatching and therefore of physical development behind; he got 90% of the bra-raid planning correct.

Physically, though, his downstroke wasn't enough to lift the ends of his peds past the sheet hung on the line away from his approach vector, and his momentum flung him, decked in Sarah's red lacy bra (Will's favorite), around in a half-circle, face-first into a fitted sheet, near the edge but not close enough to free him of it.

He slid down it, squawking, the pocket caught him, and the line the sheet hung from rebounded (slightly), which both flung him free and gave him just enough momentum to clear the ground on the first down-stroke of his wings. He, too, delivered his prize to Sky.

With a toddler in the house, Sara did her laundry twice weekly. She had only one other bra on the line. Two hatchlings squabbling over the air rights to make the last bra-raid run create quite the racket; Sara picked up her head from a sink-based task, and watched them for a moment. When Skimmer landed on the line containing her best linen sheets, she determined that interference was in order, before he snapped the line and dragged her wet laundry in the sand.

The "boys" were still there after her long walk back to the clothesline.

"Hey, you two," she said, which was the beginning of a quite reasonable request that they stay clear of the laundry. Then she noticed the voids in the inner rank of drying items, and she went … not exactly ballistic. More nuclear, with a side order of toxic sludge. "What have you done with my bras_? Barricade!_"

Barricade had been reading a datapad on the playground, most of his attention, as usual, on Sky. When Sara snarled his name, he dropped the pad, checked out Sky, found her new decorations, and tucked her onto his hip. He'd get the finery back to its owner later.

"Sara, what is it?"

This was the moment when Will, intent on a cold beer after work and accompanied by Alastair Graham (whose tipple had to be room-temperature, but that was pretty easily accomplished with a bottle opener and thirty seconds on "Reheat" in the microwave if they didn't have any bottles in the pantry), walked into the back yard.

Barricade pulled the lingerie lei from Skysong's neck and said, "Sara, do you think we could find out who these belong to?"

She took them, folded them in half, and stuck them into the pocket of her shorts. "I'm sure I'll be able to locate the owner, yes. Thank you."

Will realized what he just seen, and cocked an eyebrow at his wife. Who turned bright red, and said, "Hello, Will, Al," just as her husband and Graham grinned at one another. "Dinner's in the oven, Al, you're welcome to join us, you know where the beer is, and I think I am going to go hide in the cellar for the next two days."

Head up and back straight, she marched into the house, and very carefully closed the door, did not slam it, behind her.

Barricade said, "Did I do something wrong?"

"No," Will said, "not at all, Barricade. Think you could persuade the boys to stay out of the laundry?"

"Certainly." He fetched his errant sparklings, and strode back to the play area.

"Will," his 2iC said very carefully, accent becoming more British by the moment, "this housing doesn't _have_ cellars."

-Sidhe Chronicles-

"Good morning," Diarwen said, as Optimus rolled up a bit early for their morning Circle. "How are you today, dear one?"

It was a beautiful late-summer morning; the sky promised heat later, intense heat, but they were in the desert. In late summer, you might as well call it yards and yards of freakin' nothing, though both Diarwen and Optimus, in their various ways, were aware of the spurts of life around them.

He transformed and sat beside her, taking her hand in his servo. "I am fine, though a bit perplexed. Yourself?"

"Fine as well. What perplexes you?"

He ex-vented. "Twice now, I have healed another 'bot with my touch. I didn't intend to, in fact didn't know it was possible."

"What happened?"

"Both times, I was touching the injured bot, trying to determine the exact nature of the damage. There was an energy arc. I did nothing to initiate it."

"I wonder if Gaia did?" Diarwen asked.

"That is a very good question," Optimus said.

"We are going to have to go somewhere that we won't be disturbed by other people's auras. I have the day free, and I would have said Buzzard Rock, but everyone knows to look for us there now."

He suggested, "There is that place up by Lake Mead. Let me tell Colonel Lennox that I will be off base."

Once he had done so, he said, "Perhaps I should begin by asking how magical healing works. It is possible that this works according to the same principle."

Diarwen said, "I know what magical energy does during a healing, Optimus, but that is not the same thing as knowing how it works in all respects. I know how to alter energy flows to prevent pain signals from reaching the brain, for instance. But magic can repair a wound, as if it had been healing for days or sometimes even as if it never happened at all. I cannot tell you how that works. There are physical changes—damaged cells completely rebuilt—and I cannot explain how that is done, either. I only know that it works, and how to make it happen."

Optimus rumbled thoughtfully. "Somehow I completely reforged one of Sideswipe's armor plates. Wheeljack had no idea how that was possible without thermal energy which should have seriously damaged his leg, as the plate was not removed from it, and my servo - I was supporting his ankle at the time - as well. The plate grew uncomfortably hot, but nothing more. Both Sideswipe and I have analyzed our memory files. None of our sensors detected anything that could have caused the heat, other than that flash of energy."

"You have not had the training or experience with methods of energy transfer to know whether it was the same sort of energy flow as magical that which occurs in the casting of a healing spell," she said thoughtfully. "Do you have the sense that this would work for any patient, or only to heal another Cybertronian?"

"I have no idea," he replied.

"Perhaps first, we should speak to Gaia. Although" – she unbuttoned the cuff, and pulled up her shirt sleeve to reveal a cut on her forearm about an inch long. "I acquired this yesterday in a moment of carelessness with a novice using a blade. Care to try to heal it?"

"Very well." He put his large servo under her arm, and waited.

And waited and waited. And waited some more.

"I don't think it's going to work," Optimus said, frowning. "I don't know how to initiate it. It just–happens."

And then it did. The flow of energy didn't last long, but the cut shrunk in size, swiftly vanishing. The flow of energy terminated a moment later, just as Optimus noted that there was again heat.

"Well," Diarwen said, folding the shirt cuff back into place, "that felt precisely like magical healing that both other Sidhe and humans have performed on me. I still think we should ask Gaia for some more information, though."

He transformed, and opened his door for her. "Let's go," he said.

End Part 11


	12. Chapter 12

Disclaimers in Part 1

Lake Mead, while possessing the beauty inherent in any large body of water, was created by the hand of man at the convergence of three major North American Deserts (Great Basin, Mojave, and Sonoran; only the Chihuahuan refuses to come play) and is so recent in terms of geology that it has no specialized ecosystem of its own. The riparian zone that surrounded the Colorado River, which created it, has been drowned for sixty years in its waters. It is too new to have created such a zone for itself, merely a sediment-stained transitional area between water and full desert: a bathtub ring many hundreds of miles in length.

The bathtub ring does not prevent half of Las Vegas from treating the lake as a water park.

Diarwen did not have the human habit of dividing up the Moon's cycle into weeks, nor dividing up the week into days, nor of dividing those days into five-on, two-off. To Optimus, such made equally little difference. They had not remembered that this was Saturday, and that the lake would be crowded.

And noisy. Not only with humans, but with their floating toys too.

It took a while, a long hot noisy sandy while, but eventually they found Lake Mojave's Cottonwood Cove. Diarwen availed herself of the restaurant and store in the Cottonwood Cove Marina to procure a packed lunch, sunscreen, a large cheap paper straw hat, the first sunglasses that came to hand (they made her look like a silver-haired Audrey Hepburn), along with a gallon of water, and they absented themselves from human company.

They reached a secluded spot on the southern shore of Lake Mojave. For once, there were no boaters nearby, so they had the little cove to themselves. Still, Optimus found a spot hidden from the lake by the rocks to sit down in root mode.

Diarwen smiled. "Avoiding the papparazzi?" she asked. He had to find the reference, but grinned when he did.

While Diarwen ate her meal, he sunbathed, lying on the ground and resting back on his elbows, torso fully exposed. The sun was warm, and a little south of the base, was almost strong enough to allow him to create energon, but only "almost." He had never before regretted his adult-frame size.

Nonetheless, it felt marvelous.

When she folded up her packaging waste, he held a hand out, and subspaced the tidy bundle; there was no waste receptacle on this barren little cove.

She washed her hands in the lake, and rinsed them with her gallon of water. "Very well," she said, coming back to sit in his shade, with the darker umbra of her hat also contributing. "You have healed someone, three someones now, and we need to be sure that Gaia knows what you are doing, and I need to teach you the techniques that will ensure that you do not drain yourself to do so."

He cocked an optic ridge. "I would have assumed that was necessary. Aren't the healers taking their own health, and giving it to their patients?"

"Brigit's Forge, no. Healers would be very short-lived if that were so. They channel the energy, do not create it; nor do they use their own. At least, that is true if they do not wish to create a bond between themselves and their patients."

Optimus considered the possibilities of being bonded to Sideswipe, and wrinkled up his nasum.

"You have not had the training or experience with magical methods of energy transfer to know whether it was the same sort of energy flow as that which occurs in the casting of a healing spell," Diarwen continued thoughtfully. "Although it certainly felt as if it was."

"I have no idea," he replied.

"Nor should you at this point. You are still learning the basics. Healing magic of this level is not something taught to novices. Most healers study for years to achieve what you have accomplished. My concern now is that you are doing it safely."

"Ratchet told me that when Ultra Magnus performed healings, he was exhausted afterward, but I noticed nothing of the sort, and my logs showed no significant use of my resources."

"There are two possibilities. One is that the patients Ultra Magnus healed were much more severely damaged. Ironhide's injury was quite minor, and probably the only thing you actually healed was the leaking energon line. His ankle joint is a chronic problem, and magical healing is much less likely to affect something like that—not without some very specific, conscious direction of the energy, and you have not learned to do that yet. I think all that you did there was reduce the dislocation by purely physical means. While Sideswipe's injuries were quite severe, they were also very specific, and Ratchet had already repaired the worst of them except for that one broken plate. Neither healing may have required a great deal of energy.

"The other possibility is that Gaia provided the energy for the healing. It would be interesting to know if Prima had the healing talent, and if the Matrix ever assisted him.

"Either way, whether you are doing this alone or if the two of you are working together, you need to learn the parts you have skipped over. What precisely happened when you healed Ironhide?"

"I was examining the back of his knee to try to determine where the leak was coming from."

She sighed, and before he could protest or stop her, took her mithril dagger from her BDUs and made a swift slash across the palm of her hand. "You healed that other cut. Let's see what you can do with a fresh one."

He extended his servo, the palm of which was a little under two feet across. Diarwen was always amazed at the gentleness and precision of which he was capable, given his size, and laid her own trustingly in it.

She sensed concern in his aura—obviously it crossed his processor to wonder if such a small injury caused her significant pain. But there was also curiosity. Her body was so different from his. Was he wondering how organics worked?

Diarwen found that scholarly side of him, so often hidden by the demands of responsibility and necessity, very alluring, a thought she put firmly aside.

Neither of them were expecting it when the power flared. Diarwen barely registered the flash of energy; she was concentrating on Optimus' aura, tracking the tendrils of energy emanating between them.

The cut sealed itself so quickly she couldn't be absolutely certain what had happened. She could definitely sense Gaia's innocent strength in the aura that meshed with her own, but the control belonged to Optimus. He didn't have a great deal yet, but practice would remedy that.

Gaia was acting as a symbiont, offering her strength to her carrier—and Diarwen was now certain that Cybertronian terminology was correct. Whether the relationship would remain that of carrier and symbiont as the sparkling matured remained to be seen.

The scratch disappeared, leaving only new pink skin behind it.

Diarwen said, "Excellent. You and Gaia are working together, but it seems that she is acting only to support you. The ability is yours. Were she not docked, you would be able to do this yourself. And I think you are going to have to try it that way, in order to see for yourself how this is working."

"I cannot say that I like the idea that you must injure yourself in order to teach me."

"It is the way I was taught, and the only way that I am willing to teach."

He cocked the optic ridge at her again.

She shrugged. "Some teachers use animals or sentients that they see as lesser beings, but that was not the way of my teachers, and had it been, I would have found another."

"I see," he said.

Gaia was not happy to be evicted from her safe warm dock. But Diarwen was there, and the tiny femme realized that she could study her other teacher much more easily when she was free of Optimus' fields.

Teacher, yes, but the Sidhe was neither of the people Gaia had consented to be carried by. She hovered just out of reach, fields curiously washing over the silver-haired warrior.

Diarwen replied with calm and welcome, but made no attempt to overstep her boundaries. "Little one, you may watch and learn as well, but please let Optimus do this himself."

Gaia sent understanding, then trilled in distress as Diarwen once again cut her finger—a trill which turned to a whistle of surprise as Optimus closed the injury.

Without Gaia's assistance, he could now sense and analyze the small but perceptible drain on his energy reserves.

It gave them both a new respect for the energy that Gaia held within her small form. And when Optimus said to her, "Gaia, will you come back to me now?" she whistled a refusal, continuing to study Diarwen.

The adults eyed one another. "Well," Diarwen said finally, "that gives us the information we need. Let me show you something. Hold out your servo."

He did so, and she concentrated for a moment, then trailed one finger down it. His sensors relayed heat …

He jerked the servo back. "How did you do that? That was hot beyond the human range of tolerance!"

Diarwen chuckled. "I have told you, and Jazz too for that matter, that the world is made of the energies of four elements: Air, Fire, Earth, and Water. It was a human who first described that, by the way, but it is so useful a way of looking at things that it came with us into Tir nan Og, and human energy workers of various stripe have used it for a very long time. I channeled the energy of Fire, the element with which I have the greatest affinity, into my fingertip, and that is what you felt. I couldn't have done it if you had not slightly overpowered that healing, as you left me with a bit of mana to use. I suggest you begin to try channeling cold, not necessarily Water but simple cold, into your fingertips. When you have learned how to do that, it is an easy matter to channel the healing energy in its place."

"Please don't cut yourself again," he said. "That distresses Gaia as much as it does me."

"I shall not, then. But that," she said with a grin, "is why I asked you to channel cold. It is very warm here!"

He practiced and practiced and practiced, and felt as if he were getting nowhere.

Diarwen excused herself, went behind a boulder, and then entered the lake in her underwear, swimming and splashing. Gaia floated over her, obviously concerned, whistling.

Optimus continued to work. When Diarwen gave in to Gaia's distress and came out, Optimus gave them both an abstracted glance, and continued with what he was doing; Diarwen got back into her BDUs and returned, walking carefully because she was carrying her boots and socks. She stopped just beyond him, and wrung water out of her braid before coming closer.

She sat next to him, and shivered. Gaia whistled again.

"Are you ill?" he said, concerned.

"No, not at all. You've been working very hard, Optimus, and you've been successful: it is cold here!"

He was embarrassed. He hadn't thought to check the ambient sensor array: within his own arm's length it was 62 Fahrenheit. Outside his reach, it was one hundred and eight. "I wish I knew what I had done."

"I cannot say this will work every time," Diarwen said, "but all I need do is think that I will do this. Try that."

Ten seconds later, she shivered again. "I think you can stop now; it's working!" She moved out of his shadow, into the late-afternoon sun. "Oh, that feels good," the Sidhe said, but nonetheless donned her wide-brimmed hat.

"Diarwen, you were able to use your magic for a moment. Does that mean you are healing?"

"I believe that you healed a bit more than a cut finger, Optimus, since some of the channels I use in energy work, of which magic is a part, have reopened. I still cannot raise mana myself, but I was able to make use of what you gave me."

"Does that mean you can use energy that I give you at any time?"

"I do not know if I can store it. And I doubt you could give me sufficient for any major working. But what you did gives me hope that more of my own energy may yet return, given time. In closing the Space Bridge, I damaged my nervous system, and that repairs itself very slowly, if at all. It is likely you have done all that magical healing can do for me. Now, we wait to see what time will accomplish, and hope."

"Hope is no small thing."

"It is no small thing," she agreed with a smile. "It's getting late, Optimus, and we have about an hour to drive. Shall we leave?"

"Not until you are dry," he said firmly.

She laughed, and he bent down and very, very gently put his lip-plates to hers.

She put her hands to either side of his chin, and gave herself over to the experience. She could perceive Optimus' fields, and took special care to open her own to him.

They were fully within one another's fields for the very first time.

Gaia watched curiously, and then decided that she wanted to do what the grownups were doing, too.

Her aim was a bit off, and her enthusiasm high. She knocked Diarwen clean off her feet, and gave Optimus a nice-sized fat lip.

End Part 12


	13. Chapter 13

Disclaimers in Part 1

Once, before the war, Cybertron was home to several of the giant mecha known as cityformers. More a collection of beings united by purpose and size than by frame type, during the Golden Age most provided both home and transportation to the mighty interstellar merchant clans which traded between the colony worlds of the far-flung Empire.

Many of their number were among the first casualties of that Empire's decline, as the vast quantities of energon that they required were no longer available. Those cityformers off Cybertron orbited a suitable star for the vorns it took them to generate and stockpile enough to travel to the next; more and more did so as the space bridge network that they depended upon for crossing interstellar space fell into disrepair.

The merchant houses were forced to depend upon the services of smaller, less energon-hungry shipformers, while the cityformers remained stationary: most in orbit, a few upon suitable planets.

As the decline of the Empire gave way to the first stirrings of war, those capable of performing maintenance for the cityformers became rare, and repair materials more difficult to obtain. A few, sparing energon for the smaller members of their impoverished clans, deliberately offlined from starvation. Many more reformatted spark and processor into more modest frames, smartships or smaller shipformers, and became one more resident in the now-lifeless hulk which had once been their frames.

A few—Trypticon, Omega Supreme, Fortress Maximus, some others—chose sides in the war. Excellion, youngest and smallest of these, became an Autobot.

-Sidhe Chronicles-

_Tracer huddled in the shadows of a collapsed building, trying to get her bearings amid the smoke and explosions which had turned the once-peaceful town of Tyger Pax into an outpost of the Pit. She and some of her fellow city services bots had escaped the bombing of the town hall, but they had been caught up in the fighting almost immediately. Many had been gunned down by low-flying seekers hunting civilians and Autobots cut off from their units. The rest had been separated in the confusion. Tracer didn't know if any of her co-workers had survived._

_She heard a noise. Deeper within the gutted hulk of the building, she saw two sets of blue optics—small sets. Younglings._

_Something huge crashed through a wall a block away. She peered over a wall to see what it was—a huge Decepticon had smashed through the remains of a building with an energon mace. Someone screeched, but the 'Con stomped his ped, and the sound was abruptly cut off._

_Tracer grabbed each kid by one hand and ran for all she was worth, dragging the little bots whenever they stumbled and couldn't keep up._

_A huge explosion ahead of them blasted a deep crater in the street ahead of them. They teetered on the edge._

_The giant 'Con approached slowly—there was no need for haste, as they had nowhere to run._

_One of the younglings transformed her arm into a sword, and the other popped out an autocannon and fired a burst. Tracer transformed her cutting laser, meant for pipe-fitting. It would be of little effect, but she decided she might as well go down fighting._

_But, just as the 'Con closed on them, its arms raised and its mouth contorted into a grin, there had been a burst of gunfire and two big mechs came running to attack, with a battle cry of "Wreck and rule!" One of them, a big green bot nearly as large as the 'Con, transformed his fist into a similar mace. The other, a red and gold mech only a little smaller than his green companion, had a vicious looking saw blade._

_Tracer grabbed the younglings and ran the way the two Wreckers had come from, hoping to find more Autobots._

_The next breem had been a maelstrom of falling debris, bombs going off, and, once, rolling helm over peds into a rubble pile, thrown there by the backwash of a seeker flying right over their heads._

_Something slammed into her, and the world exploded in pain. The younglings screamed at her to get up, then hauled her to her peds, forcing her to run. Then rough servos grabbed at her, and she was flung over someone's shoulder in spite of her screams of agony. They clanged up a ramp and she was dropped on deck plating, her energon adding to the slippery blue mess already there._

_A medic shouted, "This one won't make it!" and started to put her in medical stasis—desperate, knowing she wouldn't come out of it, she'd swiped at him with her cutting laser._

_The medic moved on to another patient, leaving her to watch herself bleed out if that was what she wanted. Mecha thundered past them, shouting about holding the perimeter._

_A bomb tumbled into the landing bay and exploded, blowing the medic and his next patient to pieces. One of his arms landed on her, dousing her in hot energon._

_More mecha raced past, then another medic arrived, this one a minibot with a lot of legs. He shouted for someone to start an energon line, and started working on her. She understood there was no time to shut off her pain sensors._

_Everything went black a few moments after that._

-Sidhe Chronicles-

"Tracer! Tracer, wake up, you're having another flux!"

Disoriented, she blinked her optic shutters a couple of times, trying to get her bearings. "Get down, they're bombing the bay!"

"Tracer, it's all right! You're safe! The battle's over, there are no 'Cons here. Come on, wake up!"

Her bootup routine finished, and she realized where she was. Her own quarters on Excellion. Her own berth.

"Sorry, Zephyr. I didn't mean to wake you."

"That's OK, but these memory fluxes aren't going away. You need to see a medic about it. Schedule an appointment with Moonracer. There's no sense having to relive the battle every single time you defrag."

Tracer ex-vented. "I suppose." She lay back on her berth, feeling the distant rumble of the cityformer's huge engines taking them far away from Cybertron.

-Sidhe Chronicles-

Smoke. Fire. Screams. Energon everywhere, blue as it could be.

Along the comm lines, the "save himself who can" code began running.

Excellion twitched. Things had fallen apart, and the center was not holding. Where was Optimus? So long as the Prime was safe –

::Excellion, this is Optimus Prime. Report to me immediately.:: Coordinates arrived in Excellion's processor.

::Immediately, sir. Please send me the code word.::

::Excellion, I do not have time for this. Report, immediately!::

_Ah, but you have time to snap at me, Soundwave_, Excellion thought, and blocked that frequency. On another, Optimus hailed him, codeword first.

::Sir?:: said Excellion, watching a trine of seekers appear over the horizon, curving like knives through the debris hanging over Tyger Pax.

::Excellion, recover all possible Autobots, and any civilians you can. Retreat to a suitable star as far from Cybertron as possible. When we can re-establish contact, we will do so. Optimus, out.::

:Primus be with you, sir.:: Excellion flung down his boarding ramp, and a few hundred civilians ran aboard. Drift, once a Knight of Light, was among the Autobots who crowded out, searching for their fellows, taking the chance that they would return. Excellion put tabs on all of them, save Drift himself, whose training enabled him to shrug it off, with a whispered thank you.

A few hours later, pockmarked with near-misses and shrapnel, the Aerialbots flew beside Excellion as he left Tyger Pax to fall to the Decepticons. Excellion himself was not unharmed; he could not get his landing gear to retract once he'd achieved take-off speed. Then, just as he was well above the ground, someone leaped up and grabbed the dangling wheel carriage, and pulled himself into Excellion's cargo space.

Drift. Thank Primus it was Drift. Drift, with a very long rope trailing him; he turned, and began to reef it in. Others came to help.

In the end, two more injured Autobots and one last civilian were brought aboard by way of Drift's rope. And then, far above the ruin of Tyger Pax, Excellion had told the mecha he was carrying to plug the hole, called the Aerialbots to lock to him, and hit hyperdrive.

He never saw Cybertron again. The Diaspora had begun.

-Sidhe Chronicles-

He had once been a Knight of Light, but the Circle had fallen to Decepticon treachery.

Drift, alone in Excellion's conference room, sighed. He had expected to live out his vorns as a Knight. Drift himself, the Decepticons called first "turncoat," as he had been among the faction before joining the Circle, but then they began to call him "walking death."

And now he was the captain of the Excellion, and the leader of a band of refugees. A long, strange trip, he mused, and wondered where it would end.

The door opened, and Hound, his second, came in, datapad in hand. "Sir," he said cheerfully, and sat next to Drift, resuming his reading.

Hound would not have been Drift's first choice as second-in-command, but in the chaos that was flight from Cybertron, he had proven himself the most effective of the mecha on board outside Drift himself. It was an easy appointment to make, although Hound was a scout, a spy when the need arose, a specialist in organic life.

That was a useful skill, in the circumstances in which they found themselves. Hound often found raw materials for them; if Drift had the suspicion that the scout reported them only when their harvest would not upset a world's ecology, that was fine with him.

The door opened again, and Bulkhead and Hot Rod entered, Perceptor hitching a ride on Bulkhead's shoulder.

Percy – they were extremely lucky to have Percy aboard, Drift knew. A tiny, purpose-built minibot, it had been he who repaired Excellion's landing gear in those first chaotic hours out of Tyger Pax. Most of his frame type, Hook and Scalpel being notorious examples, were Decepticons. Perceptor, though, had been friends with Ratchet and Wheeljack, and was now Excellion's CMO.

Drift thought back for a moment to Percy's report upon how he had come to be picked up on the slaughterground that was Tyger Pax.

"I was separated from my unit," Percy said from his medbay berth, calm as black space around them. "The smoke and the noise increased substantially, and I lost sight of them. Then I saw Megatron's head over the hill, and there were screams." The little minibot had swallowed.

Moonracer was tending his injuries, as he had worked on others until he collapsed, whereupon she found not one but four separate lines cut by slugs, two of which had to be pulled from Perceptor's frame.

"There were too many Decepticons for me to come to my comrades' aid. I went in the opposite direction. I was able to take a few of them down, but not enough…when I heard the 'save himself,' I knew we'd lost. I kept moving in the direction of my unit's initial objective. I didn't know where else to go. I never saw any of them again." Perceptor swallowed. "I treated any wounded civilians or other Autobots that I found, and they came with me."

His had been the clot of refugees who rushed Excellion's ramp, when he lowered it. The next group were shepherded on board by Bulkhead and Hot Rod, the last survivors of a Wrecker unit: Moonracer was in that group, along with Bluestreak.

Bulk led the Autobot forces on board Excellion. Silverbolt was Bulk's second, Drift's third, their Air Commander: a title he said he'd like to replace with one that didn't taste of Starscream.

If the civilians had a elected a representative, he or she wasn't at this meeting, which was a military stocktaking.

Too few survivors of Tyger Pax, shepherded through the vast darkness of interstellar space by too few soldiers, five flighted mecha, and one cityformer, pursued by Primus Alone knew how many Decepticons, who would take every single one of those lives if possible.

Shipboard chimes rang, representing the shift change; the meeting began.

Drift asked, "Hound, is that the inventory?"

"Yes. We have enough energon to last us as far as the Pentriax System. There were mining colonies on the second and third planets, but they played out a megavorn ago, and the system's been abandoned since. It's possible that there won't be any reason for the Cons to look there. We might be able to salvage something from the old mining colonies, while Excellion uses the energy from the star to stock up on energon."

"Percy, what about the mecha?"

"The battle injuries have been treated, though not everyone could be repaired completely. We don't have the resources for that. Everyone is stable now. We do have a lot of programming issues. Some mecha are showing signs of lingering glitches resulting from the trauma of the battle and our escape. Nearly all the civilians are having defrag fluxes to one extent or another. We don't have a programming specialist to deal properly with that. In many cases, I'm considering having them write those memories to a sequestered file. It's the most beneficial way to deal with it, under these circumstances."

"Do we have anyone who is endangered by the situation?"

"Not at this time."

Drift said, "You have my permission to let patients do that, as long as it's what they want to do. If someone would rather keep their memories and deal with the issues, that's their right."

"Of course."

"Bulk, what's our readiness?"

"We have Excellion, of course, as well as Defensor, the Aerialbots, and seven others who've seen combat, including the mecha in this room. The rest are civilians. Most would be physically capable of fighting, but they don't have the training, and what weapons they have are either the tools they work with, or small weapons intended for self defense. And some are too young or too old or too badly damaged to be able to defend themselves."

Drift said, "We'll need to form a militia to train any who are willing to volunteer, and can pass a physical. Percy, how fast could you start giving that kind of physical to anyone who wants one?"

"Oh, I could be ready in an orn."

"All right. Split 'em into two groups, the adults to be trained up to be home-guard ready, the younglings in self-defense—I don't want any youngling deactivating unnecessarily who could be saved by knowing how to fight back or evade capture."

Bulkhead nodded. "It'll make people feel better too. Maybe they won't have fluxes so bad once they learn how to kick a 'Con's skidplate."

"How many bots total?"

"Three hundred six," Perceptor replied.

-Sidhe Chronicles-

"I don't know why," Hot Rod said. "I just don't trust him."

"At all?" Bulkhead said.

They were having a weekly meeting in the conference room. Rivet, the civilian leader, was sometimes invited to them: but not today.

Four recharge cycles earlier, they had overtaken a drifting ship whose markings labeling it too as a survivor of Tyger Pax. It contained four members of the noble caste, and nineteen slaves, all in stasis lock for lack of fuel.

The ship was currently maglocked to Excellion, and would be consigned to a star, once the medics had followed his last wishes and recovered all parts suitable for reuse. The shipformer was one of two who had not survived.

On treating the nobles, Perceptor had turned out their subspace pockets, and found nothing of use beyond precious jewels and precious metals. Those he could use he confiscated. Those he could not were returned to their owners.

The nineteen slaves had been overjoyed when told they were now free mecha. The nobles had objected.

Sunstone, whom Hot Rod did not trust, said bitterly, "Will you complete the ruin of my House that the Decepticons began?"

Drift said calmly, "You may leave at any time you wish. However, I cannot afford to allow Excellion to provision you. lf you choose to remain with us, you will share in our resources, and in our fate, as equals."

There were not enough spoonsful of sugar in the galaxy to make that go down in a most delightful way, which was why Hot Rod now said, "Lemme put it this way. If, during a pitched battle with the Decepticons, Sunstone saw any advantage to turning his coat, he'd do it. I won't let anyone I value spend time alone with that one."

"I agree," Perceptor said, to everyone's surprise. "That mecha resents all of us as the very symbol of the hard times his House has fallen upon. His sparklings do not willingly spend time in his presence."

If the brash Hot Rod was seconded in his opinion of the mech by the thoughtful Perceptor … "Is that so?" Drift said thoughtfully. "When will we make planetfall on that next world?"

"Twenty-two orn."

"Hound, your reports on that world: is there sufficient solar energy present there to support a bot Sunstone's size?"

Hound accessed his report, and then said, "Yeah, just barely."

"So, if we leave him with a small energon cube in addition to what he can produce himself, he should be able to support himself adequately?"

"Yes, certainly. One mech will be able to salvage everything else he needs from the ruins, with plenty left over."

"Very well. Sunstone will disembark Excellion there. If any of his House choose to accompany him, they may do so. Any who choose to remain aboard may do so, regardless of their age or relation to him. –Has an elder been chosen to use the frame we found deactivated?"

"Yes," Percy said. "They voted among themselves. I don't know who will show up for the reformat tomorrow, but they've all had the tests and the physical for it. I'm prepared to cope with any of them, except perhaps Milestrina."

"Why not her?"

Perceptor hesitated. "She is the eldest of them all, and is already fragile, physically. Were a reformat to fail, hers would be likeliest to do so. In addition, she has told me she has little interest in reformatting; she does not feel she can spare the time from teaching."

"That's a little…illogical."

"She's four thousand vorn old, Drift. If she wants to be illogical, I say let her. And she's been teaching everyone everything she can, as fast as possible, as well as spending a great deal of time with the survivors of the Youth Sector massacre. If she draws the short straw, as she puts it, I am to download certain sectors of her memory, and give them to three others."

"Who?"

"I won't know until I need to."

"Very well." Every bot would eventually reach a point where, as their memories degraded and their sparks no longer easily accepted a new frame, they chose to return to the Well rather than reformat. Milestrina had been sparked a few vorn after the War of Independence from the Quintessons, and lived through the height of the Golden Age. For her, the decline had begun with the loss of the Original Primes, some two hundred vorn ago—some time before Drift had been sparked. The Knight respected her choice, but resolved to make time to sit at the elder's peds in days to come, while there was still time to hear her wisdom.

Drift turned to Verge, communications bot. "Any more sightings, or hearings, of the 'Cons?"

"No sir, just that last transmission four days ago. And that proved to be from a ship heading away from us."

"Good enough. We –"

But Verge interrupted him. "Sir, two breem before I came here, Excellion picked up a ping. Like the others. Untraceable. But we aren't alone."

"That's what, eight in four orn?"

"No, sir, this is the ninth."

"Nine pings in rapid succession. Well, mechs, we aren't alone, and that's good news. There may still be other Autobots alive out there. With luck, one of them is Optimus Prime."

Those nine pings were the thin soup of hope that kept them going, doing the daily work, finding the resources they needed, seeing to their little band of survivors. But then, Excellion's sensors picked up a message, transmitted into space and distributed through radio repeaters, the remains of the spacebridge system_:_

_**With the Allspark gone, we cannot return life to our planet. But, fate has yielded its reward: a new world to call home. We live among its people now, hiding in plain sight, but watching over them in secret, waiting... protecting. I have witnessed their capacity for courage, and though we are worlds apart, like us, there's more to them than meets the eye. I am Optimus Prime, and I send this message to any surviving Autobots taking refuge among the stars: We are here. We are waiting.**_

And at long last, Drift requested that Excellion set his course toward a new home, with hope of a new life for the survivors of Tyger Pax.

End Part 13


	14. Chapter 14

Disclaimers in Part 1

Soundwave was...bored. In life, his frame had been designed for orns of immobility as part of a communications network. His bonds to his symbiotes, though, had kept the long stationary periods from wearing on him too much. But now those bonds were forever silent, and in their absence, he was bored. He felt guilty about that selfishness—which irritated him. Guilt was a useless emotion, foreign to the Decepticon philosophy. What was gone was gone. Aside from avenging a comrade's deactivation, there was no point in dwelling on what could not be changed. They were in the Well, a fate he had escaped. Regrets were for the weak.

But he missed them, an anomaly which brought him emotional pain, pain he could not pinpoint within his processor. He could not bring himself to purge that anomaly from his code either.

Ravage had been known to the Autobots (and to most of the Decepticons as well) as a silent, savage killer, but Soundwave had known his dry wit and wise counsel; counsel he wished he taken when it came to getting well clear of Megatron's madness upon the Fallen's appearance.

Frenzy and Rumble had been a constant aggravation, but their antics had always been amusing.

With Laserbeak and Buzzsaw in the air with him, flight became a joy rather than a means of transportation.

And Ratbat, greedy, opportunistic Ratbat, had been a voice of simple practicality throughout the war.

Now, they were gone, and he was stuck in his LAN. There was the human internet, but it was primitive and only slightly less limiting than the LAN.

He missed Dylan. He had never looked beyond the human as anything other than a useful pet, but in the end he had proven himself as dedicated to the cause as any Decepticon.

Megatron had been wrong to consider them mere insects. Their short lifespans limited their advancement, but with proper guidance, they had great potential.

Proper guidance, and a few useful upgrades. His current pets, now: he checked the location of Wilburn's cell phone, to find him on his way home from work: Soundwave zoomed in on his location to see that he was currently at a fried chicken place, undoubtedly procuring fuel for the two of them.

Smith was in the quarters the two of them shared. That was just as well, as currently he did not have a cell phone, having disposed of one which was GPS-enabled, and thus a way to track him.

The comms specialist turned his attention to a final run of simulations, then made the finishing touches on a packet of plans and schematics. Replacing Cybertronian components with human ones, and keeping the entire device to a reasonable size and mass for the tiny beings to use, had been an interesting challenge. He was pleased with the result, though: his pets should have no trouble building the devices.

A holoprojector would disguise them from the ubiquitous cameras and facial recognition software that had led to Smith's identification. He had also modified a graphics program that blended the features of two people to speculate on what their offspring would look like if they reproduced. It had now been adapted to start with four base images rather than just two, then age or deage the resulting image as desired, and render it in a three-dimensional format that the holoprojector could use. There were certain advantages to occupying a LAN—he had a respectable number of top-of-the-line multicore processors. Those allowed him to crunch out complicated graphics work like that in a short time.

His pets would be pleased with the surprise.

-Sidhe Chronicles-

Smith and Wilburn tore into the chicken bucket, then got their headsets and logged in. Both of them examined the plans Soundwave showed them. It would take a few days to get the components, since they would have to use multiple sellers to avoid attracting notice, but Smith said, "This looks good! We'll have to build a prototype to be sure, but I don't see anything glaring, do you, Tom?"

"Looks good to me too," he replied. "What are we going to use for a power supply? This thing's gonna eat batteries."

Soundwave said, "Ideal solution: energon power cell."

"When we get settled somewhere maybe we can figure out a way to build one. What's the projected battery life given what we can do right now?"

"Best estimate: one Earth hour. Restriction: facial disguise only."

"That should be all we need. We'll just have to plan to be somewhere once an hour so we can change the batteries."

"Caution: There is an unavoidable limitation to holoforms. RFI: frequently results in image flickering."

Smith said, "There's a lot of that crap around. This's still the best chance we have to avoid getting caught by image recognition."

Wilburn asked, "Are the feds looking for us anywhere near here yet?"

Soundwave replied, "Negative. Soundwave: has restored connection to Echelon, and to the humans' satellite observation platforms. Authorities: searching for you in Denver."

"That's too close. We need to get out of here," Smith said.

"Soundwave: has considered that. Located: superior base of operations." He sent map coordinates to their computers. He had found a small private airport for sale near Omaha, Nebraska, and had their freight company purchase it. There was an unused farmhouse on the property, which would become the office of the freight company, and Wilburn and Smith would be its managers: living upstairs where the offices were downstairs.

The Decepticons would become company vehicles. The large airport buildings would give Flatline and Warp, the smaller two, a place to relax in root mode. Lugnut and Blitzwing were built to be comfortable in their alt-modes for long periods, so that wouldn't be as much of a problem for them—especially since they could fly out and find cover in the middle of nowhere when they wanted to transform. Soundwave would warn them when a surveillance satellite was about to pass over their position.

Smith said, "I got an idea how we can get you there. Last night someone hit a construction site and stole a truckload of copper pipe. We use their MO and steal you from the data center. We'll have to take other things too, or the cops'll be suspicious, but if we're lucky those bozos will get the blame for both robberies. Local robberies won't interest anyone outside town."

Wilburn said thoughtfully, "We need a truck. One that won't be recognized or reported stolen."

Smith said, "I have an idea about that. The next county over has an impound lot, I'm sure. Soundwave, if you can check their records, find out if they've had a suitable truck or van in impound long enough that no one is likely to turn up to claim it. Then you make it look on paper like someone paid the fine and got it out. If we can pick it up without getting caught, we'll have a stolen truck that will never be reported as stolen."

Soundwave said, "Earth vehicle: only necessary until we rendezvous with Decepticons."

"Yes, but we'll have to be careful where we abandon it, or that will attract attention too," Wilburn said.

Smith shrugged. "Have one of the seekers drop it off in the ocean somewhere."

-Sidhe Chronicles-

The data center was quiet at night, with only a skeleton crew on duty. A little after three a.m., the IS techs and most of the security crew were in the break room in the office building.

Soundwave, on this night of his liberation, created a water cooler buzz by emailing some salacious photographs that the boss kept in a hidden folder on his office computer to "All" about fifteen minutes before the lunch break. As he had suspected, the employees were gathered around a laptop gossiping about that, and a few had already started forwarding the email.

Smith and Wilburn pulled ski masks over their faces as they backed their stolen van up to the nearest exit to Soundwave's location. Soundwave himself started his shutdown routines, powering off his last CPU as the two men reached his area.

They wasted no time disconnecting the server rack's hardlines and wheeling it–him–out to the van. After that, they returned to take other things that would have attracted thieves out to make a buck—printers, monitors, things that could be sold at flea markets, so that the cops would not realize that Soundwave's server had been the focus of the raid.

There was unfortunately no cash in the building, but Wilburn thought it was likely real thieves would look for some. He used a fire ax to break down the office door and knocked open several cabinets which looked like they might contain a safe, and he and Smith began to riffle through them.

"Hey! What do you punks think you're doin'?"

Herbert, the security guard,was reaching for his walkie-talkie.

Smith smiled quite widely behind his mask, picked up a large hammer that he had used to break the brackets holding the server rack to the floor, and bashed Herbert's skull in with it. One blow was sufficient to put the fat man down without a sound, a pool of blood spreading rapidly from his nose and ears.

Wilburn said, "Shit! He's dead! We've got to get the hell out of here!"

They left the mess they'd made of the office, all thoughts of cash gone with the wind, raced to the van and drove away as fast as they dared.

Ten minutes later, one of the IS techs found Herbert and started screaming. Her co-workers came running, and ten minutes after that, the place was full of sheriff's deputies.

It was clear to them what had happened. Poor Herbert had surprised that gang of thieves who'd been hitting businesses in the area, and had now graduated from theft to murder.

Herbert, on the other hand, had graduated from "waste of skin" to "murder victim."

Smith and Wilburn rendezvoused with Lugnut and Blitzwing on a lonely stretch of road twenty miles from town. No one would have imagined two huge cargo planes might be able to land and take off there, but potential observers, unless they were also Autobots, couldn't have known that the two seekers had VTOL capability. Blitzwing took Soundwave and the two humans to their new base, while Lugnut went to give the van to the fishies.

In the search for the murderous gang, nobody gave the disappearance of a gay couple who had no ties to the community and no friends among their coworkers a second thought. They'd been gone a week before they were reported missing.

-Sidhe Chronicles-

Smith and Wilburn looked around the airport, which remained in every particular the farm it once was before someone plowed out an airstrip. Smith asked Warp and Flatline, "Did the boss tell you where he wants us to set him up?"

Warp just shook his head, and Flatline said, "There is nothing suitable here."

The two humans privately agreed. These buildings were old, long out of code, and thus not suitable for long-term...use, habitation, whichever...by a computer array.

But they had what they had. "One of you can take Tom to a heating and air conditioning place tomorrow to buy an air conditioner. That way we can keep his room from getting too hot when the weather warms up, and keep the dust out. That'll take care of the worst of it."

Flatline loomed over him. "You do not give orders here, fleshling."

Smith stood his ground. "Then you can explain your better idea to Soundwave," he replied.

At that, the black-and-red medic backed down.

Warp looked uncertainly between the human and the 'Con. Smith figured the sooner they woke up Soundwave, the safer they'd be.

He and Wilburn chose a downstairs room on the cooler north side of the house and cleaned it as thoroughly as they could: taking up the floorboards and washing the accumulated crud of years out from between them, for instance. Neither of them trusted the power supply, not the main line with its fragile poles for airborne idiots to crash into, not the wiring in the century-old farmhouse.

They ran extension cords to the chosen room, as its wiring was very old and very fragile, and made sure the uninterruptable power sources and surge suppressors were in working order. Then Wilburn installed a camera on a swivel mount over one window, so that on it "saw" both inside the room and out onto the runway. Microphones were also placed inside and outside the window,other cameras and microphones placed throughout the property, and Flatline and Warp sent to wire them in.

That work complete, Smith and Wilburn powered up the LAN, very careful to adhere to the sequence that Soundwave had given them.

Unlike Jazz, Soundwave had not yet mastered the ability to leave his anchor point and move about as a ghost. He had not paid as much attention to the folk tales of the humans he lived among, and the humans he had known—the Goulds, first Senior then Junior, and now Smith and Wilburn—devoted little time to ghost stories. It had not occurred to any of them that Jazz' way was even possible.

Therefore, Soundwave had remained in deep recharge throughout the journey to Nebraska, and awakened only when his components powered on.

Soundwave spent a moment exploring his new sensors, then telepathically contacted the Cybertronian members of his gang, who were all relaxing in the sun in their alt modes. It did them less good, now that the days were shorter and the sun farther away, but it was better than inside the chilly buildings.

He asked for a report. Blitzwing replied, ::We've been letting the squishies fly us all over the Pit-be-damned country carrying crates of Primus knows what, getting crumbs of their fuel all over us, listening to their idiot conversations—how long do we have to put up with this, anyway?::

Lugnut said, ::And now you've got two of the little insects living here FULL TIME! Do we have to have them stinkin' up the place around the clock?::

Flatline sent a glyph of agreement. Warp kept his processes to himself; the youngling simply did as he was told and kept his helm down, which had kept him alive longer than most amped younglings.

Soundwave replied, ::Fleshlings: useful. Priority: avenging Mighty Megatron. Conclusion: Tolerate fleshlings." He left the "or else" unsaid, and none of his listeners invited it; he knew Lugnut would have heard that capital M in "Mighty," as well.

Flatline said, ::I need a place to work that they can't get into. We all need repairs.::

::Equipment barn: suitable, with modifications.::

The medic agreed; that barn, one of several on the property, was already equipped to work on tractors and harvesters. It would be less work to turn into a makeshift medbay than any of the other buildings. Now he needed to build or collect the instruments and other equipment he would require.

::Soundwave, how much control do you have over the humans' satellites? If we could send Lug and Blitz to the moon to salvage the _Ark_, it would go a long way towards supplying us for a long time to come—as well as keep those supplies out of the Autobots' hands.::

Soundwave replied, ::Control: insufficient. Reason: too many observation stations working independently of one another. Alternative: numerous fliers taken to Area 51 for study. Security: lax compared to Mission City base.::

Blitzwing's logical persona said, ::There are too many energon detectors; it's too close to the Autobots' base. Until we can mask our signatures, we won't be able to get anywhere near Area 51.::

::Then what can we do?:: Lugnut asked.

::Alternative: Materiel and energon caches. Barricade: may not have revealed their locations yet. Flatline and Warp: will investigate as soon as necessary supplies have been procured from local sources.::

Flatline wasn't happy about getting stuck with all the scouting work, but he knew better than gripe about it.

-Sidhe Chronicles-

Smith and Wilburn took a walk. They were careful always that one of them carried a surveyor's theodolite neither knew how to use. Otherwise two single men who were always together…they'd had no trouble in Colorado, because the server farm had attracted a more liberal group of employees than the people who might otherwise have been found in an isolated small town. But here, they were truly out in the boonies. Gay men had been killed out here for nothing other than being gay. Since they weren't gay, they wished to avoid this.

Soundwave might be aware that they were conducting clandestine conversations out here where the wind blew wild across the plains. Very wild, and often filled with snow. It didn't matter; the two used the time not to talk but to plan how to talk. To construct and memorize a series of code phrases which could be exchanged like days'-end chitchat.

-Sidhe Chronicles-

Money solves many problems. When sufficient of it was proposed, the human said, "All right. I'll do it. I'll have my phone on, so you can see it when I do."

Smith slid the sizable pile of bills across a bar table that wasn't too clean. If you ordered a sandwich in this place, he thought, you'd better say "Hold the roaches" out loud. "Take us to your house for the other half."

Introductions had been made because the fellow worked at the Autobots' base, and that was sufficient to pass money from hand to hand. And having Blitzwing zap the guy's house from overhead (though to his displeasure using a much different (and vastly smaller) caliber than that he favored, right after Wilburn gave the third human the cash, made very clear that his employers were not to be trifled with.

Oh, it wasn't terminal damage. It _was_ inconvenient, and expensive; every home-insurance policy has a deductible.

Blitzwing left an impressive hole in the roof, though, which local meteorologists were quick to state must have been a meteor the size of a grain of sand, vaporized after touching the material of the house. But in that instant of contact, they said, all the speed-energy (the word they used) transferred into the house.

It had not occurred to any of the Decepticons that the house might have other inhabitants, so it was just as well no one was home. No non-officer among the 'Cons got quarters to himself, and every officer did. That simple. No exceptions.

They were naive. They thought, hot toddy (or approximate thereto). We've got our "in" to the Autobots' base.

In reality, they had just bribed with five million dollars a man of honor who was the janitorial services supervisor.

He cleaned the offices that the public saw. Prime's office, or Sideswipe's, or for that matter Ironhide's? Not even close. Those were cleaned by a rota of officers. About once every five weeks, Optimus Prime could count on having to clean his very own office.

Still: better that than Sideswipe's. Which he'd also have to clean about every five weeks.

The janitorial supervisor, whose name was Arturo Melendez, accepted the bribe, and returned to work. He used the base intranet to send a message to Sideswipe.

He went to Sideswipe because a careful reading of the situation told him that it was much, much better to haul Sideswipe out of recharge for a cause later proven to be trivial than it was to waken Ironhide for any reason whatsoever.

Seventeen minutes later, the janitorial supervisor was in front of Optimus' desk. He had the impression, just the impression, that Optimus had been awakened in the middle of the night. He said in concern, "Sir, are you all right?"

The others all froze. Optimus looked surprised. Then he smiled, moved, and said, "Thank you, I am. People seldom ask, and I was taken aback, you see."

"Yes sir."

"So … do you think you can tell me what happened?"

Melendez did, several times, maintaining the continuity they would expect of a person whose account was truthful, but not the rote repetition of memorization.

-Sidhe Chronicles-

As a result of his meeting with Melendez, Optimus said to Jazz a day or later, "So, have you a plan?"

"In progress, boss bot, in progress," the spy replied. "In the meantime, I'm followin' Arturo around."

"Oh. Does he know this?"

"He will if he has to," Jazz said flatly, and Optimus left it at that.

Optimus Prime again met with Arturo Melendez a few nights later, Will Lennox by his side.

"Arturo," Optimus said, smiling widely. "How are you?"

Arturo, who was five million tax-free dollars better, returned the smile. "What can I do for you, sir?" he said.

"You can earn that lump of money, Sergeant," Will answered for him. "You can pass on some information to the 'Cons for us."

"Yes sir!" Arturo's grin might have been just a little too eager; you could take the man out of the Rangers, but you couldn't take the Rangers out of the man.

So, on a Saturday, Jazz haunted Arturo's cell phone. Not the one Soundwave was monitoring, the _other_ cell phone.

"… anythin' they have to say about the Moon base," Wilburn said.

The holographic projector wasn't very good yet, and the two pet humans were going to have to go back to Soundwave and report that they flickered. Still, their guest was not commenting on that, and their booth was nice and dark.

They were in a local restaurant, having a beer before dinner: Smith, Wilburn, and Melendez. Melendez had his information to give them, and between steak and dessert, it got passed. The Autobots were planning expeditions to scour large areas of the country, looking for those caches of recoverable materiel Soundwave was lusting after.

The Autobots had the location of eight. Arturo passed on four. They monitored these closely and waited, while Jazz paid much attention to the energon detectors along the interstate system.

And then, somehow, Barricade got wind of it.

-Sidhe Chronicles-

"You heard what?" Optimus said.

"I heard a human talking on a phone, saying things about raiding a cache of energon. I don't know who he was talking to."

"When was this?"

"Last night. Late in the human's cycle. The night cleaners were here."

"Did you see the human?"

"Yes."

"If I showed you a photograph, you could identify him?"

"Yes, I think so."

Optimus projected what the humans cops would call a "six-pack": six mug shots, two rows of three each. Barricade picked out one man.

There were some candid shots as well, taken by the security cameras on the base. Barricade picked out the same man.

Optimus rose, and clapped him on the shoulder. "Barricade, I thank you. You know how this works; you won't hear very much about it until we get it wrapped up."

Barricade flushed his facial fins with coolant: he "blushed." "Yes, sir."

Optimus showed the 'con out of his office, and then turned to Ironhide, Will Lennox, and Sideswipe. "Well, that's both a welcome and an unwelcome surprise," he said.

"Unwelcome?"

"We know they're sniffing around those caches. We need to scoop them up before they get there. The welcome surprise," he added, smiling, "is that Barricade is far more loyal to us than I had dared to hope." He dialed Charlotte Mearing, and said, "Director," warmly. "I have a new member of our intelligence team for you to vet. His name's Arturo Melendez."

-Sidhe Chronicles-

Charlotte Mearing very carefully banged her head against the desk. "He's a janitor, dammit! He's a Medal-of-Honor winning janitor! He's going to get himself killed!"

"We'll keep his end of it very simple until he learns the ropes, Director."

Will felt like tearing his own hair out. Arturo was willing, and Arturo wasn't dumb. Problem was, Arturo was honest, and thus had no talent for lying.

Therefore they had to spoon-feed him information, a teaspoon at a time. Problem being, they needed to get about a gallon of the stuff to the 'Cons.

It wasn't until Chip Chase, of all people, happened to say to Jazz that every time they tried to trace the call back to the 'Cons hideout, they got closer. They knew it was somewhere in the continental US, west of the Mississippi. Multiple contacts meant eventually, Soundwave would make a mistake with his countermeasures, and they'd get a fix on the origin of the calls.

So everybody calmed down, and Arturo continued to learn the ropes of being a double agent, and had a heaping helping of spycraft on the side.

-Sidhe Chronicles-

Of all the people on base, Diarwen mused, it was Chromia whom she would have least expected to be bloodthirsty.

Chromia sat beside Ironhide (of course), servos entwined except when she needed hers back to put one on either side of her mouth and scream, "Geddim geddim geddim geddim!"

She seemed to be quite comfortable applying this vocal encouragement to both Sides and Barricade more or less indiscriminately. Day and night, the silver mech and the black one circled one another in the sparring ring, half the base sitting in hastily-constructed stands, or in the case of the mechs, on ground sheets, circling the ring in ever-widening ripples.

Skysong said anxiously, "He's not really gonna get Cadecade is he? Not Sides?"

"No," Diarwen said patiently, for perhaps the fifth and perhaps the fifty-third time. "No, they are just practicing how to fight bad guys."

"So who is the bad guy?" asked Stormwing, cuddled up on Diarwen's other side. "Cadecade's not a bad guy, but I don' wanna have it be Sides, either. He reads good stories."

Starskimmer said emphatically, "It's both of 'em! Whenever you want it to be!"

"Right you are," Diarwen said, entirely bypassing logic once the cleaning fluid began to pool in Skysong's optics. "They are both having fun, you see."

This was not merely true, but observable. Both mechs' lip plates had stretched back into very wide grins.

Barricade landed a good one to the side of Sides' helm, and Sides responded with a swift takedown of the black ex-Decepticon. Killstrike's group made encouraging, scrubbing motions with their entire arms, and sometimes their entire bodies, while some of the Autobots moved out of the way … but not Ironhide. He was so focused on the combat that he took a good one to the side of his own helm, and turned to glower at Killstrike.

Who raised his hands, and said, "Sorry, mech. I got a little enthused there."

Ironhide growled, "When they finish, haul your enthusiasm down to the ring."

Killstrike's faceplates lit up like a Christmas tree. "Really? Sure!"

"Hide," said Chromia, taking a moment away from screaming "Geddim."

"No, it's all right," Ironhide said to his mate. "Be fun."

Killstrike gave him a grin, and returned his attention to the match.

In the arena, Graham shouted encouragement as Barricade grabbed a leg and trapped it, then applied a bit of torsion, and Sides fell with a noise like a century ending. The two mechs were belly-to-belly, straining and groaning, but suddenly Flareup – who had appointed herself referee somewhere in all this – slapped the ground, and yelled, "Sides, one shoulder on the ground outside the ring! Match to Barricade!"

No organic can truly speak Cybertronian, of course, but Diarwen understood enough of the language at this point to translate the burst of comradely profanity exchanged between the two as they got to their peds and congratulated one another on a good match, you slagger, too bad I didn't kill your fraggin' aft on the battlefield when I had the chance. Ratchet plucked each one up by an audial fin and dragged them both off to medbay.

Ironhide rose and made optic contact with Killstrike, then jerked his head toward the ring, and Diarwen felt a large shadow drift over herself and the hatchlings.

Optimus said, "May I sit down?"

"Of course. Were you watching in the monitors?"

"Yes, but that lacked the grit-in-every-seam realism," he said, smiling down at Skysong, who forgot to be shy and climbed into his lap. Skimmer liked his Prime, who was the best climbing frame ever invented, in his optics, and promptly put the tall mech to that use. Stormy took to the air and settled comfortably onto Prime's shoulder, saying, "Now Ironhide and Killstrike are going to fight, and you can root for whichever one you want!"

"Well," said the Prime carefully, "since Ironhide is to me what Barricade is to you, and I have only recently gotten to know Killstrike, I think I'll root for Ironhide."

"Ironhide's your parent?" said three wee voices, stunned.

"Foster-parent, yes. He helped me to grow up," said the Prime.

They took that into their tiny helms and chewed thoughtfully on it. Object-impermanence was not one of their strong suits at this point in their development; that an adult had once been a sparkling was almost more than they were able to process.

The match began.

Ironhide was larger than almost everyone else on base; only the Prime had reach and height on him. But Killstrike had many vorn of combat behind him, wasn't all that much smaller, and was quite strong for his size … and only a little more stubborn than Ironhide. The two mechs locked arms and pushed against each other. Flareup occasionally dancing out of their way, they grunted their way back and forth across the ring, sometimes exchanging blows which would have felled lesser mortals or several dozen oxen at once.

And then Ironhide's ankle turned and he fell into the sand with a cry of anguish.

Optimus attempted to hand Skysong over to Diarwen, but she magnalocked to him, as did the other two. He smiled, said to Diarwen, "Want to come along?" and went to the ring.

Ironhide lay in the sand, cursing. Optimus said, "Now look what you two have done!" to both him and Killstrike, whose gestalt drew close to him. But Killstrike knew when the mick was being taken, and grinned at his Prime.

"Sorry I hurt your ankle," he said to Ironhide.

"Wasn't you, kid, this thing's been going out on me for vorn." Chromia arrived at Ironhide's side, and took his servo into her own, stroking his browplates.

Ironhide glowered at his foster-son. "You gonna put it back in again?"

"Sure," the Prime said amiably. He picked up the joint. "On one," he said, and whacked it a good one.

Ironhide looked at three curious sets of young eyes peering at him from positions on Prime's armor, and said, "That … hurts, you …"

Chromia muffled a snort of laughter; Flareup exchanged optics with her and joined in.

But Optimus hadn't set down the ankle. Instead, he smiled at Diarwen, and maintained his hold on it: Ironhide's expression changed. "What're you doing?"

"Conducting an experiment," the Prime said. He contacted Gaia, and the resultant surge of energy through him and into his foster-father's ankle nearly knocked him off his feet.

It set the two male hatchlings flapping into the air from their maglocked positions, and Skysong squawked and did what flapping she could. "Owie! Ow, ow ow!" she cried.

Even Diarwen knew that this was not an "I'm hurt" shriek, but rather the cry of "I don't understand this and it makes me uncomfortable!" Barricade loomed on the horizon, and figured that out, thereafter letting Jolt think the small medic had forced him to return to med bay.

Ironhide, of course, bellowed like a bee-stung bull.

Chromia smacked him one upside the helm. "What are you screaming about, you? That doesn't hurt! It's just a tingle!"

Diarwen asked curiously, "You could feel it too?"

"Oh yes," Chromia said. "Through my bond to my favorite lunk, here."

But at that moment Ratchet rolled up, and the boys returned to Prime's shoulder-plates. Skysong waited until the medic was close enough, then leapt like a small metal grasshopper from Optimus' chest and latched with a "clank" onto Ratchet's which rocked the enormous medic on his peds.

"Hurts!" she complained. "Hurts, hurts, hurts!"

Ratchet said nothing to his Prime, simply performed the Brow Plate Rise from the Pit Itself in his direction, cradled Skysong in his hands gently, and said, "We'll get it to stop." He glowered at Ironhide, who was working his way to his peds, and at Killstrike, helping him (as he felt more than a little responsible, despite Ironhide's disclaimer). "You two, report to med bay. Sweetie, come on, let's go take care of the _other_ sparklings."

Once they were in med bay, Ratchet returned Skysong to Diarwen – she was still fighting shy of Optimus – and saw to Killstrike first, with Jolt assisting in doing not very much; the mech had little more than a few scratches. The medic finished up with, "Idiot!" and swung a wrench.

Ironhide's fist materialized between the tool and Killstrike's helm, engulfing the wrench in midair. "Time to lay that habit to rest, Ratchet," the weapons specialist said firmly. "We ain't at war no more."

Ratchet gaped at him, Killstrike did the same, and Jolt braced for explosion. But to the junior medic's surprise his craftmaster stood down, slumping his shoulders as he accepted the wrench, and placed it with the others to be cleaned. "All right," he said quietly. "You've made your point." He looked up again, and the old Ratchet was back momentarily as he said, "How long could you have done that?"

"First time I saw you lay into Sides, I wanted to."

Ratchet swallowed. "But that was back at the beginning! Just after Kaon fell …"

"Yep."

Ratchet blinked at the ancient weapons specialist, and realized that he had a lot to think about. Later. In his quarters. Probably with the help of a super-sized cube of high-grade.

Nonetheless, he said to Killstrike, "Okay, you're outta here. You can go back on full duty right now."

"Thanks, Ratchet." Killstrike slid down off the table, and went to Ironhide, clasping forearms with him. "Thanks for a good match," he said. "Thanks for everything."

Ironhide grinned at him. "We'll see what you think next time, when I bounce your aft from one side'a the ring to the other."

Killstrike grinned back, replied, "Lookin' forward to seein' you try, mech," saluted him, and left.

Ratchet had pulled Jolt aside to say, "Okay, what I wanted to show you with 'Hide is the way a joint deals with repeated damage. We'll probably find some joint spurs, places where the nanites have gone overboard in replacing damaged material. They'll have to be removed when we restructure the joint."

Jolt now pulled down the Giant Alien Robot X-ray Machine, Mark IIa, Coveted by Professional Spies Everywhere, and rolled it to the table on which Ironhide lay.

Ratchet told Ironhide what he was going to do, and helped the old mech pull his ped out straight under the unwinking gaze of the Mark IIa. When Jolt lit it up, though, it showed them a perfect ankle – perfect for Ironhide's frame type. Ratchet's own ankles were in better shape, as he was a later model by six or seven design iterations.

Ratchet swore. Then he pinged the Prime. ::Get in here, Optimus.::

He arrived with Diarwen on his collar fairing, Skysong in the Sidhe's lap. Ratchet's expression lightened a bit as it always did at the sight of his favorite patient, and his nod to the Sidhe was in consequence almost civil.

His tone to his Prime was anything but. "What did you do to Hide's ankle? This is twice you've stepped into my area of expertise, Optimus, without extending the courtesy of letting me know you were going to."

"And for that I apologize, Ratchet. I am sorry. No trespass upon your territory was intended, but this time, at least, I am at fault for deliberately attempting to heal. Though I did choose an injury that would be difficult for you to deal with, did I not?"

Ratchet had found long ago that a glower was the best response to uncomfortable questions, and he employed it now.

Ironhide had some questions of his own, though. "You…healed that bum ankle of mine?"

"Yes. Maybe."

Ironhide scrunched up his faceplates. "I love yer version of a straight answer, Prime."

Diarwen smirked.

Jolt put his two cents' worth in. "It seems that the cable fragility around the joint which was a contributing factor has also been resolved. Can you make a circle with that ped?" the junior healer asked Ironhide.

"I ain't been able to do that for years." Ironhide tried it again, tried circling in the opposite direction, then pointed his ped down. Then up, then as far pigeon-toed as possible, and after that splay-ped as far as possible.

"Gene Kelly," Optimus said, "has nothing on you."

There was a silence as all of the Cybertronians looked up the reference on Wikipedia and You Tube

"He healed me too," Skysong chirped, from Diarwen's lap.

"Did he now," Ratchet said, his eyes on Optimus'.

"Did I? When you were with me, and I healed Ironhide?"

"Yes. How come you ate a little femme?"

It really was too bad Optimus didn't have a mouthful of energon at that point, because it's not often a roomful of mecha and one Sidhe get to watch the leader of the Autobots snort his drink out his nose. But that opportunity was lost forever when Optimus recovered from his surprise enough to smile at her. "I did not eat her, Skysong. She chooses to live inside me. I didn't know you had talked to Gaia."

"'S not talking," said Skysong. "'S something else." She moved from Diarwen's lap to his chest armor, and latched on with a clang.

"Sky," said Ratchet, "will you let me take a look to see how Optimus has healed you? With the big look-inside machine?" He meant the Mark IIa.

"Tomorrow," Skysong said, fading into recharge.

Ratchet knew when to fold 'em. "All right. All of you clear out of my med bay, then, since there's nothing medical here to be done."

-Sidhe Chronicles-

The day after that "tomorrow," Ratchet knocked on Optimus' door very early in the morning.

"Come in, my friend," the deep, pleasant voice said in reply to his knock.

Optimus stacked a data pad, and rose, going to the high-grade cabinet. But Ratchet said, "None for me, thanks," before he opened the door.

Optimus turned to him. "This is unusual for you."

Ratchet sighed. "The war is over, Optimus. I don't need the crutch any more."

"Wise of you to see it so, Ratchet." He returned to his desk. "Does this have to be a sit-down conference? I'm trying to take the advice of my CMO, and break my working day up with exercise."

"I need to be back in my surgery in point-three joor."

Where three deserts meet, there are no handy oases. They went out along the road around the base at a careful pace, finally finding a sweep of landscape still grayed by long shadows cast by the morning sun.

"So what's on your mind, Ratchet?"

"Skysong. You did such a good job healing her that I have scheduled her for surgery in about point-three joor, to remove the internal fixators. She isn't quite ready to fly yet, for two reasons: she needs to strengthen the cables and struts in her wings through use; they didn't develop normally while she was in the fixators and now she needs to catch up. The second reason is that I've kept her upgrades coming as she matured, but she's had no chance to integrate them into her physical responses at the programming level, as she has not been able to actually fly. By the end of the day, I expect to have a flight-capable hatchling on my hands, who can't physically fly. That's where you come in."

"I?"

"Jetfire bequeathed his flight rig to you. I know you've learned to use it. Will you take Song up with you, and teach her to use the flight protocols? Her brothers can't; they aren't really mature enough, yet."

Optimus' mouth twitched. "I am relieved that you think I am."

Ratchet considered several replies, and finally said, "If I'm giving up wrenches, and giving up the high-grade, I might as well give up snark, too."

Optimus blinked. "Great Primus. I will not know you."

"Don't know myself, lately." Ratchet wiped a servo down his faceplates. "Anyway. That's what she needs. Can you spare some time today?"

"For Skysong, I will find it," Optimus said.

-Sidhe Chronicles-

"Optimus, I thank you, and thank you, Skysong, for thinking of me. Nonetheless I must decline."

Optimus blinked, and Skysong pouted. Optimus said carefully, "We could go for a short flight very close to the ground, to get you more comfortable with the idea, Diarwen."

"Optimus, I would trust you with my life. But no. I do not fly unless I must, and then, as you have seen, I do not enjoy it."

The stubborn Sidhe stood in front of them both, arms crossed against her chest, with Skysong looking over Optimus' shoulder at the Sidhe, as she was maglocked to his back. Optimus looked down at the woman as Skysong's brothers circled overhead.

The hatchling craned her neck around to her carrier, and said, "Can we still go? You an' Star an' me an' Skimmer?"

"Of course," Optimus said, and stroked her helm. To Diarwen, he said, "Perhaps we could talk about this later?"

"If you wish. Sky, I am sorry, but I would not enjoy flying. I hope you will."

The little femme smiled at her. "'Course I will." She did not understand why anyone would bypass the opportunity to fly. But then, grounders were funny.

Optimus got airborne, and the shimmer that was Jazz came into existence beside Chip Chase's wheelchair."Ain't seen too many people out-stubborn Optimus," he said.

Chip snickered.

"Oh, shut up, the two of you," Diarwen said. "Now, are we going to spar, or are we going to tease the Sidhe?"

Chip grinned at her. "No law against doin' both," he said. "I think it's called 'multitasking.'"

Far overhead, Optimus sent to Skysong, ::Fly me.::

::Fly you?::

::Yes. Just like your ultralight. The aileron controls are here, and see this? This does _that_.:: He demonstrated, and felt her delicate touch on his flight systems.

::First show me what everything does,:: she sent, her excitement rising.

He demonstrated every control, and every combination of controls, and through Gaia, he felt Skysong learn, felt her ease and competence in the air grow by leaps and bounds.

They flew loops and twirls and wingtip loops with her brothers; formation flying, dips, dives, and a stall-out at three thousand feet Optimus thought would probably show up in his defrags for many nights to come.

When Optimus felt Skysong begin to tire, he sent, ::It's time to come down now,:: and not one but three wee voices wailed, ::Nooooo!:: across his comms.

They compromised. Optimus showed Skysong how to land, and how to take off again; once to demo, once to try it, once to try it again because he'd had to take the controls on the first try, and two more times to set the sequences in her processor. (With more loops and twirls and brother-tag while in the air, of course.) She got them down safely on the last one, and by the time Ratchet showed up (with Parker in tow) to reclaim her, was already soundly in recharge.

"That went well, I take it," he said, easing the sleeping hatchling off the Prime's shoulder struts.

"Extremely well. I hope I have not overdone it." Diarwen, occupying a position safely distant from Ratchet, divided a radiant smile between him and the hatchling.

"I'll know in about a joor," the medic said. "Fly with her again tomorrow?"

"Of course. I've marked out time for her every day."

Parker looked up at the sparkling. "I'll really miss flying with her," she said.

"Please, Dr. Parker, come join us. Skysong loves flying with you; she was extremely disappointed that Diarwen cannot come with us."

"She can't? Why not?"

"She is frightened of flying."

"Is she now. I'll speak with her about that," Parker said, looking even more stubborn than Diarwen (Optimus wished he could be a winged organic invertebrate on the wall for that discussion). "I may need a day or two to set it up, but if you can set a specific time, I'll be there, every day."

Skysong was back in the air where she belonged. Optimus regularly scheduled half an hour, two PM human time, with them. Dr. Parker handed things over to her assistants for that half hour, and all five of them, one human, three seekers, and a Prime, circled the blue skies above their home, free.

But on the tarmac that day, Diarwen, when approached by the human medic, gave Optimus a look that promised sweet revenge for ratting her out, then said to Parker, "We had as well put this aside now as later. Would you like to have dinner at Hanratty's this evening?"

"Sure, if Sarah can take Johnny."

The two women left together. Ratchet, Skysong still on his shoulder, smirked at Optimus. "You're in hot water now."

The Prime was strategist enough to realize his CMO was absolutely right. But he did not know the best way to deal with phobias among humans and Sidhe; nor did he know what to say to Ratchet, and so he let the medic have the last word.

Peace was certainly changing them all, he mused.

Diarwen quickly showered and changed into mufti, and met Alicia Parker at her car. They chatted about the flight and about Johnny's day in kindergarten on the drive down to the gate, but then after they turned north toward Las Vegas, Parker asked, "Is there anything you'd like to discuss without a bar full of people around?"

Diarwen replied, "There is very little to discuss. I was in a plane crash many years ago which left me with a phobia about flying. I can control it—you know this, I will fly when I must. I choose to subject myself to that _only_ when I must. I have been flying whenever necessary. since the crash. In Afghanistan, my unit commonly fast roped from a helo into mountain passes that could barely accommodate a goat. No one has ever complained about my performance, or questioned my courage, in the face of this fear. What more would you have me say?"

"Not a thing, Diarwen. I don't think Prime was questioning your courage, I think he was concerned about you."

"I know that."

"You could have said this on the tarmac."

"Indeed I could have. But I do not wish to squabble with Optimus before one of his officers, and I do not mind giving him time to think about the consequences of making my decisions for me without first speaking to me in private," she smiled. "Also, I happen to know that Seamus, the owner of Hanratty's, is making shepherd's pie tonight, and I much prefer that to cafeteria food."

"What's shepherd's pie?"

"What is shepherd's pie, now? Ach, you have no idea what you have been missing."

"This isn't the one whose recipe starts, 'First, catch a shepherd,' is it?"

"You would have to ask Seamus about that, but it did not taste of long pig when I ate it last."

Parker grimaced, and Diarwen grinned. She went on to praise the glories of authentic shepherd's pie in full bardic voice as they drove toward the city for an evening of good food, music, and laughter that had absolutely nothing to do with Diarwen's phobia. They were both healers enough to know that some wounds left a scar. Often, tincture of time was the best cure, and Parker knew that in Sidhe terms, not so very much time at all had passed since Diarwen's crash.

On the other hand, the fact that it was relatively new by Sidhe standards meant it probably wasn't ingrained, and could be treated if they could figure out how. Desensitization was an option, but Diarwen had been facing her fear and flying for years. Fast-roping—sliding down a rope out of a helicopter—if that hadn't desensitized her, Parker wasn't sure she knew what would. Though she would certainly try to think of something. Under control or not, nobody deserved to have to live with a phobia.

End Part 14


	15. Chapter 15

Disclaimers in Part 1

Lennox asked, "Are you sure about this, Bobby?"

"Yeah. I need to stay active duty, because if I retire the insurance will cost an arm and a leg to cover D'andre's care. But, Mo won't be able to take care of him and the other kids too if I buy the farm. Those damn doctors seem to think we oughta put him someplace. What would you do if it was Annabelle?"

Will said, "Me? I wouldn't have to lift a finger, it's what Sarah would do that they ought to worry about."

Bobby nodded solemnly. They'd never find the body if Sarah Lennox saw anyone as a serious threat to Annabelle.

"Hmmm. I got an idea. I'm going to put you in for a promotion to staff sergeant and put you in charge of facilities management. It'll mean a raise, and it's a desk job. You won't go into the field anymore. But you'll still be able to keep your readiness up, in case we have a problem here at the base."

"I don't know how to thank you, sir."

"None needed. You're the best person for the job, you proved that at the Cape, and Graham and I really do need someone in charge of this stuff. I'll shove the paperwork through by the time you get back from Malibu."

"Yes, sir."

-Sidhe Chronicles-

As the Sidhe of the Seelie Court had held the land of Tir Nan Og since the days of the Great Ice Barrens, so the Unseelie Court held the Underhill, a land of endless crystal caverns reached through portals often concealed within burial mounds.

The crystal caves were the only home that Evanon remembered. He knew he and the other humans who lived here and served the Fair Folk were different from them, but at barely fourteen, he didn't fully understand how.

Evanon had never been treated especially cruelly, unlike some of the others. As a baby, he had been given to a servant with a child of her own to nurse. Once he started crawling, he had become the Fair Folk's pet.

He grew up speaking Sidhe, and learned quickly to be cute and submissive. Beautiful though they were, the Sidhe of the Unseelie Court were fickle, cruel...and deadly, as his foster mother had learned when he had been only four. Her boy had ended up with another slave family, but Evanon had found himself in the barracks, under the care of Morithel, Queen Medb's champion.

Thoughts of Morithel encouraged him to hurry his pace through the twisting back tunnels. Morithel had told him to take a message to a guard post and run straight back. Her orders were never to be questioned, only to be obeyed to the letter—but he had learned that doing so kept him out of trouble with the other Sidhe, and saved him many a cuff or a jinxing. Morithel had worked hard with him to make him useful to her kin. He could handle a sword well for his age—well enough to spar with the Sidhe youngsters. Then, his swordmistress had convinced Medb that it would be entertaining to teach him a few minor charms. Medb had agreed, with the restriction that he was to learn no attack spells. Instead, Morithel had taught him to cast fireworks and small sleight of hand charms for the entertainment of the court.

She had taught him good manners, so that he could sit at Medb's feet while she ruled from her Rosethorn Throne, that which he was never allowed to touch, for the thorns would flay anyone save Medb who dared to sit there.

He had learned to sing and play a little lute, for the Sidhe had loved his high, clear child's soprano. But when his voice began to break, he had been forbidden song. That it broke his heart? That was not the concern of the Unseelie Fae. No human's pain was.

Evanon reached the guardhouse and took the stairs to Morithel's office two or three at a time. Out of breath, he stopped in front of her desk and bowed deeply. "I delivered your message to Guard Captain Kerion, Mistress. He said to tell you that it will be as you command."

"Yes," she said. "Evanon, go and bathe and dress for court. Her majesty requires our presence at her table this evening."

"Yes, Mistress. Should I prepare to entertain the court?"

"Not tonight, child."

He bowed again, and slid down the banister to the ground level. Morithel smiled, and watched sadly as he ran toward the servants' bathing cave.

She called her personal servant. "Draw my bath. After Evanon and I leave, pack up his things and bring his bundle to my tack room. Have the groom saddle a horse for him, as well as my Nightrunner. And, Beanie?"

"Yes, Mistress?"

"I expect _all_ of his things to be in his bundle, do you understand? No one had better help themselves to any souvenirs."

"Yes, Mistress. It will be as you command."

Morithel went into her armory and collected an epee, the edged mate to the sparring blade which Evanon had learned to use. There was also a marshdrake jerkin. Non-sentient relatives of dragons, the marshdrakes of the Fen Lands were prized by the Sidhe for the fine leather which could be crafted from their hides. Morithel had charmed this one herself to protect against magic as well as the sharp edge of a blade.

She opened an oaken chest, careful to touch it in just the right places so that it would not spring out a poisoned needle. From the chest, she took her court jewelry, as well as a small coffer.

The coins within were true gold, though Evanon would have to be told to melt them down before selling them. No moneylender where Evanon was going would recognize the faces or inscriptions upon them. Still, she packed enough into a charm-lightened bag to give him a generous start in his new life.

Medb had decreed that it was time for the changeling left in Evanon's place to return and claim his birthright. There was no longer room in Medb's court for the little human lad who had once been Jason Brierly. The boy would be returned to his people, while the Sidhe lad who had taken his place would be taken from the only home and family he had ever known and returned to his birth parents.

Morithel profoundly disapproved of leaving changelings with human families, but it was the only source of protection against cold iron that they had. Because they spent their earliest years among the humans, before their magic emerged, eating their food and being baptized into their church, the Unseelie gained the ability to live unseen among them for the rest of their lives. But it was never without a cost, never...

She sighed, and put the coffer away. Her vows bound her to obey Medb's commands, but her honor demanded that she do all she could to lessen the cost to Evanon.

Morithel took the things into her chambers, and stripped off her armor and clothing, leaving them for her slaves. Only her swords did she put away herself—a slave touched a warrior's blades on pain of death.

She sank into the tub of hot water. Beanie brought her a sparkling crystal glass of blood red wine. "Which gown would you prefer this evening, Mistress?"

"No gown, Beanie. Tonight I will require my dress uniform."

"As you wish, Mistress." The slave bowed, and busied herself with laying out the ornate uniform, making sure each button was polished, each bit of braid in perfect order, and the black boots shined to a mirror finish.

Before they went to the Queen's Hall, Morithel inspected Evanon to be sure there was nothing about him that would annoy Medb. "Now listen to me, boy. Mind your manners, and no matter what Her Majesty orders you to do tonight, do it without question. No complaints, no hesitation, do you understand?"

"Yes, Mistress. Have I done something wrong? Am I in trouble?"

"You have done nothing. Understand me, child, you have done nothing wrong, and you deserve no punishment. But you must be strong and brave. Your life is going to change tonight. I have done everything I could to prepare you for this change, and you are ready. No matter what happens now, remember, you have done well, and I am proud of you."

"Thank you, Mistress."

Morithel closed her strong, scarred hand over the boy's thin shoulder for a moment, before they walked together into the uncertain future.

-Sidhe Chronicles-

North of Eureka, US 101 followed the California coast sixty miles through redwood forest to Crescent City. The sea foamed and crashed against the rocky beaches, and the huge sequoias towered over even most Cybertronians as they reached for the sky. To the east, the mountains dwarfed the redwoods.

In this place, one knew one's position on the universe's scale of importance, and that...was very small.

Bumblebee had rarely been able to afford the time to experience awe at the handiwork of creation. Now, there was a new "wow" around every bend.

Bumblebee thought it was one of the most beautiful areas he had ever seen. Anywhere. Not just on Earth.

About halfway between Eureka and Crescent City, not far from Klamath, he and his passengers, his Guarded Sam Witwicky and Bobby Epps, rolled into the small town of Sequoia Falls. It had a few bed-and-breakfast inns, a motel for the less picky, an artist colony, and a couple of camp stores which supplied the backpackers and kayakers and campers who supported the town's tourist industry.

It would have been nothing more than that, if not for a fenced-in high-tech complex that overlooked the town. None of them knew what that complex was, but from the number of cars in its parking lot, it was an important employer in a town this small.

Bobby said, "Wonder what that is?"

Sam shook his head. "Looks...scientific, I guess. But it isn't a chemical plant, they'd have big tanks and things outside. Pharmaceuticals, maybe?"

"Maybe. If they make drugs in there, that would explain all the security. See the armed guards?"

Sam hadn't, but once Bobby pointed them out, he paid attention.

That place was locked up tighter than Fort Knox. He wondered exactly what they _did_ do in there...and if it had anything to do with Sector 10.

Bee pulled into the motel's parking lot and settled in a space near the office, enjoying the evergreen-scented fall air while he waited for Sam and Bobby to pick up their keys. It was sunny, but much cooler here than at the base.

He saw movement high above, and thought of Laserbeak, but it was not the late Decepticon spy. It was a bald eagle.

Bumblebee did not notice a curtain twitch in the front window of a house across the street from the motel, or a hand reach for a telephone.

-Sidhe Chronicles-

Jazz backed down the ramp of one of NEST's CH-47 cargo helicopters in alt form. It felt good to be back in action, even if he was only providing transportation for Chip to go talk to an old man named Lester Hardy, a retired DARPA official who had worked with James Smith in the early 1980s.

Locating the man hadn't been easy, because after his retirement, he'd dropped off the map, while his retirement checks still went into his old bank in San Diego. Jazz located his daughter, who took care of his finances for him. After he convinced this very suspicious, protective gatekeeper that they were not, in fact, out to take advantage of her father in any way, she eventually told them where to find them. At present, he was living with his current girlfriend, a former starlet, in her Malibu beach house.

Their route took them through El Segundo, Marina Del Ray, Venice Beach, and Santa Monica, then west along the shore to Malibu. These were places that had existed for Chip only in movies. With Jazz navigating the infamous Los Angeles traffic, he was free to sight-see all he wanted. Jazz ended up saving a lot of image captures himself, especially as they passed Pacific Palisades and followed the Pacific Coast Highway through the area's famous state parks and beaches.

Jazz put his top back—this time, he'd made sure to scan a convertible, and he'd found a 2009 model. "What kinda music you want to listen to?"

"We're in California, buddy, gotta be beach music!"

Jazz made an appropriate mix and cranked it up. They were a couple of happy campers, especially when a red jeep full of bikini-clad coeds pulled up alongside and checked them out.

Chip gave them a freckle-faced grin and a friendly wave, but the unwelcome thought intruded that none of them probably knew the difference between RAM and ROM, or had ever had grease under her perfectly manicured fingernails.

Then his imagination helpfully supplied an intriguing image of a certain apprentice medic wearing the blue string bikini one of the girls had on. More or less.

The girls turned off at the exit to one of the beaches, waving bye-bye; one of them even blew a kiss. Chip flirted back, laughing, but for once his heart wasn't really in it.

That damn ice-princess had got under his skin, but good.

Jazz slowed down as they reached the city limits. They didn't see any movie stars, but the area was as well-known for its famous, wealthy residents as for its glorious surfing beaches.

Past a row of beachfront hotels, they started passing private homes. Jazz checked his maps and took a turnoff.

According to her Wikipedia entry, Felicia McDowell had acted in a string of sci-fi B-movies during the eighties, and was now a space-princess regular at conventions all over the world. If People Magazine was to be believed, apparently she had settled down from the string of boyfriends she'd had during her glory days, and was quoted as "being happily involved for nearly five years now."

Jazz pulled into the driveway of a well-kept home with a red tile roof and a wooden stairway from the end of the drive down to the beach, where a jogger passed by, accompanied by a large Irish setter.

Jazz opened his door and disengaged the restraints clamping Chip's chair in place. Chip carefully turned the chair, aware that Jazz' interior could be a little sensitive to bumps and scrapes, and used the chair's stair-climbing function to step it down from Jazz' alt form.

Once Jazz closed his door, he jumped to Chip's chair, leaving a thread of energy connecting him to his alt form so that he could get back nearly instantaneously if necessary. Bobby's and Sam's experience in Florida was on both their minds.

Chip rolled up to the door and rang the bell. Presently a young Hispanic woman opened it. "Hello, may I help you?"

"I'm Chip Chase, here to see Mr. Hardy." He presented his identification, which she examined.

"Is he expecting you?"

"Yes, ma'am."

"I'm Stella Garcia, Miss McDowell's assistant. Come in, I'll find Mr. Hardy for you."

She showed him to a sitting room overlooking the beach. It was a warm, friendly space with eclectic furnishings and a comfortable, homey feel. The only career memorabilia in evidence were two movie posters and the gold record for Felicia's one-hit-wonder movie theme from one of them, and a couple of scientific awards that must have belonged to Hardy. Felicia asked, "May I get you a drink, Mr. Chase?"

"No thanks, ma'am, I'm fine," he said with a smile. Then he noticed that Stella was wearing an engagement ring.

Not so long ago, that wouldn't have stopped him.

Hardy came in. He was wearing board shorts and surf shoes, and his long gray hair was tied back in a ponytail. He had the wiry frame of an athlete who seriously cross-trained—Chip thought probably the triathlon. He had a dark tan, no matter how politically incorrect that was these days.

"Welcome, Mr. Chase. How are you?"

"Fine, sir, yourself?"

"Oh, fine. And it's Les."

"Chip." The two men shook hands.

"Have a good trip?"

"Sure did, I've never been to California before. It's great."

"Yeah, I've been a lot of places, and never saw anywhere I like better. Sure I can't get you a drink?"

"Well, I wouldn't mind a soda or something."

Les got into a beer fridge under the bar and pulled out two cans of soda, poured them over ice. He brought Chip's drink and then seated himself nearby. "I understand you had some questions about Jim Smith, a guy I used to work with thirty years ago?"

"That's right, sir. He's involved in an investigation. I'd like to ask him a few questions."

"Well, I can't help you with where he might be. I haven't seen him in, oh, it's been twenty years now."

"You and Smith worked on a computer project together, is that right?"

Les nodded. "Yeah, we were working on a better method to talk to computers, or to other people using computers, than keyboards and mice or even touch-screens."

"Direct neural interface technology."

"That's right. You know your stuff."

"That's kind of what I'm doing now." He took his hand off the chair's control and moved it around. "The controls work through an interface patch on my back."

Les grinned. "I'm glad to see our work being used to help people heal. We were expecting it to be used for military applications, didn't really see a medical application at the time but it makes perfect sense."

"I don't have a problem with military development, Les, I'm a veteran myself."

"Army?"

"Yes, sir. What can you tell me about Smith's work?"

"I can show you an early prototype." He got up and unlocked a cabinet. On the top shelf was a heavy helmet with a big, awkward visor containing two small television screens, and equipped with large, ear-muff like headphones.

Chip accepted the device, surprised at how heavy it was, and turned it up to see two old-fashioned metal contact pads.

"Wow! Does this work?"

"It allowed control over the computers of the time. But, it's heavy and hot, and still tethered the user to the computer by means of a cable. The idea was ahead of its time. What you could do now with the lighter components we have available, and wireless technology? Light-years beyond this."

"Standing on the shoulders of giants," Chip quoted, looking at the helmet.

"Don't know how 'giant' I'd say," Les demurred.

"You did everything I've been doing—and with beer cans and baling wire to work with. That's pretty giant to me."

Les smiled, and went on to ask about the chair's controls. Chip was happy to explain.

Jazz jumped into the headset to check it out while no one was paying attention, then returned to the phone.

Communications interfaces went two ways. And now he knew exactly how the people at Premium Software had been killed. He had seen that MO before, but he hadn't recognized it in humans. If he'd seen a melted CPU, with damage radiating towards the poor bot's wireless modem, he'd have known immediately what happened. Someone had stumbled onto Soundwave's net shadow.

Now, it was possible for the telepath to kill organics in cyberspace as easily as he could other mecha.

Jazz was so lost in thought that he didn't notice the interview was over until Chip wheeled back to his alt form and texted him to open the door. The saboteur shook himself awake and hopped back to his alt, quickly waking it and letting Chip get his chair situated.

Once they backed out of the drive and headed back to LA, Jazz said, "Sorry, man."

"What's up?"

"Ah know who did it, an' how."

"Soundwave? It had to be but...I don't get the 'how.'"

"We never knew exactly, 'cause he always left their processors and main memory completely slagged. Once, one of my operatives just fell offline right next to me—close enough t' reach out an' touch—an' Ah couldn't do a thing to stop it. Now—he can do the same thing to organics, if they got one of them headsets on."

"He's a telepath, right? But I thought that was, like, hacking other bots? How does that work on a human?"

"If Ah can draw energy from either one, 's gotta be similar. Ah got a few ideas t' run past Diarwen first."

"Can we fight him?"

"If Ah can find th' slagger, Ah can sure as Pit put a round through his spark chamber, but on the Net? Ah might have to, but there... Ah just ain't sure how yet."

To be Continued in

A Year in the Life of Optimus Prime: Four


End file.
